A popular US pastor has returned to the pulpit after recovering from coronavirus. Speaking on Sunday, Pastor John Hagee, 80, said he'd spent 15 days in the hospital with double pneumonia, and that he was "still supposed to be home gasping for air". His miraculous recovery, he declared, was a testament "to the healing power of Jesus Christ".

“We have a vaccine,” pastor Hagee went on, “the name is Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God".

Hagee, was diagnosed with Covid-19 last month, as per an announcement by his son, pastor Matt Hagee. Despite some concern for his father's wellbeing considering his old age the younger Hagee quipped at the time that his dad was "feeling well enough to be frustrated with everybody in a white coat and a stethoscope".

In July, Hagee's ministry-run schools, Cornerstone Christian Schools, filed a lawsuit in a bid to be granted permission to hold in-person classes. The suit proved successful after Texas Governor Greg Abbott stepped in to remind local officials that they did not have the authority to delay reopening schools until after Labor Day as they had planned.  

Earlier this year, Hagee, a well-known preacher on the End Times, said Covid-19 was a "dress rehearsal for the New World Order".

“Our economy sunk to the worst since the Great Depression, as we watched power-hungry dictators trample our freedoms in an extended crisis intended to crush the hope of the people," he said. "Make no mistake … the Great Tribulation is coming, and it will be worse.