Meet the queer team of real-life superheroes protecting Fire Island from COVID-19

Meet the world’s newest superqueero team: the COVID Destroyers.

Equally colorful as The Avengers or Justice League, the COVID Destroyers formed after the 4th of July debacles on Fire Island, in which visitors neglected to wear masks or social distance to stop the spread of the coronavirus. With the popular tourist destination’s reputation on the line, locals came together to help protect the population.

Gay City News reports that nightlife promoter Daniel Nardicio, along with volunteers from the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, drag queens and gogo boys make up the team, which canvases the island with masks and hand sanitizer in hand. The team also reminds visitors to remain socially distant in high traffic public areas such as beaches, and also accepts donations for nightlife performers who have lost work due to the pandemic. The group has already raised $10,000.

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Actor, director, and choreographer Taylor Shubert, who has joined with the ranks of the COVID Destroyers, says that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has provided supplies to the group, and that the activism has brought together residents of Fire Island. “That’s the very definition of community,” he observes.

Nardicio echoes that sentiment. “Fire Island was an epicenter of the HIV/ AIDS crisis, and we learned then that we must take care of our own,” Nardicio writes on the group’s GoFundMe page. “[The Covid Destroyers] decided a positive, helpful approach will do much more than a ‘tag ‘em and drag ‘em approach’ and we can hire out of work nightlife performers while doing it.”