AceShowbiz - Former "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" star Kristy Swanson is asking fans to pray for her as she battles COVID-related pneumonia in hospital.

On Monday (01Nov21), the actress, who has previously shared anti-vaccine videos, asked her followers for help.

"Prayers for me please. Yesterday I took an ambulance ride to the hospital. I'm still here with pneumonia, I'm on oxygen etc, all covid related of course. I'm in good spirits and in great hands," she wrote on Twitter.

Swanson played the title character in the 1992 film "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" before Sarah Michelle Gellar was cast as Buffy on TV.

Later on Monday, Kristy tweeted her thanks to hospital staff at Virtua Memorial hospital in Mount Holly, New Jersey, calling them "incredible" and describing the paramedics who transported her there as "super pro, friggin amazing and hot AF! (as f**k) (sic)."

She added, "Thank you all for the prayers it truly means a lot to me (sic). I can feel it. Just little more clarification & update, I was just at the tail end of my Covid diagnosis when it jumped into my lungs. So they are treating me with Baricitinib & blood thinners so I don't clot. I'm ok."

And while Kristy has received plenty of well wishes online, she has also been slammed by Twitter users for previously criticising COVID-related science, including vaccines.

One Twitter user, @leesawalker, spoke on behalf of several when she asked if Swanson had done her "research" into the medications she is now being treated with.

"But what's IN Baricitinib?!?! And all the others things they are pumping you full of?!? If only there was something you could have taken to prevent this from happening...," she tweeted.

Another follower added, "I'm sure you are in the great hands of doctors and nurses who are stretched to the max because of people like you - who not only won't get vaccinated but encourage others not to. Signed, A tired nurse. GET VACCINATED."