Loudoun Board Chair Randall Condemns COVID Casket Dance Team

LEESBURG, VA — A group of demonstrators, including former Loudoun County Board member Eugene Delgaudio (R), held a so-called COVID-19 public funeral in Leesburg Friday to protest measures taken by state and local governments to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

A black casket with the words "RIP COVID" painted on it was carried by four pallbearers wearing black top hats and red sashes. The group was led by a band leader with a large four-foot baton. The group called itself the COVID Casket Dance Team.

Delgaudio, a delegate to the Republican National Convention, tweeted Friday that the COVID-19 casket dance team was "awesome."

In a news release announcing the event, Delgaudio's group, Public Advocate of the United States, described the participants in the event as "protesters of Virginia lockdown," even though Virginians are largely allowed to travel anywhere they want in the state and have never been legally required to remain in their homes.

In 2014, Delgaudio announced plans to fight back against his group's designation as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its anti-gay activism.

Loudoun County Board Chair Phyllis J. Randall was not amused by the stunt. Since the start of the crisis, more than 5,500 Loudoun residents have tested positive for the coronavirus, 364 people have been hospitalized and 115 residents have died.

"We mourn with their families and loved ones," Randall said Friday in a statement.

Because Loudouners have been wearing masks and following other coronavirus safety protocols, the numbers in every coronavirus category have decreased, she said. But the county is continuing to practice all the measures to keep residents as safe as possible, she added.

"I find the 'COVID funeral' (complete with a casket dance) put on by members of the Loudoun Republican Party to be not only insensitive, I find it to be ignorant and an affront to every person who has lost their life to COVID-19," Randall said. "They should be ashamed."