Trump and the Right-wing Media ‘Politicized’ the Vaccines
Medical professionals seeing COVID cases rise as "fast as we’ve seen throughout the entire pandemic" due to the unvaccinated
Prominent physicians are joining the chorus of elected officials, commentators and others who are continuing to sharpen their rhetoric speaking out against former president Donald Trump and his allies among the political right who have politicized and sown disinformation about the vaccines for COVID-19.
Cases of the deadly disease have been spreading in pockets across the United States, mostly among those Americans who refuse to be vaccinated against the illness.
“What's driving this first and foremost right now is our conservative groups. Now they’re trying to make amends after they’re seeing the monster that they've unleashed,” said Dr Peter Hotez, a noted expert in virology and founding dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine, professor of pediatrics and molecular virology & microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine, where he is also director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development. “But you know, this was not a one-off thing. This went on for months and months and months and also targeting scientists as well. They went after of course Tony Fauci and myself and several others. This was all a deliberate, coordinated, war of aggression against science and scientists.”
Hotez was referring to Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and has served as a top advisor to both presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden during the course of the pandemic.
Unvaccinated Americans are both prolonging the pandemic, and putting even those who have been vaccinated back in the position of having to return to wearing masks, according to Dr Leana Wen, a CNN medical contributor and former health commissioner for Baltimore, Md.
“Yeah, I think it’s really unfortunate that the vaccinated people are paying a price for the actions of the unvaccinated, because what we know is that the vaccinated are very safe around one another, so the two of you, all of us, if we’re vaccinated, we’re safe around each other. But if we’re vaccinated and we’re surrounded by a whole bunch of unvaccinated people, especially in areas with high coronavirus transmission, there’s going to be spillover, and that’s what we’re seeing,” said Dr Wen. “We’re seeing vaccinated people also get infections. Now, they tend to not be severe infections, which points to the effectiveness of the vaccine, but it’s possible that especially with the Delta variant, we could still get ill, we could pass it on to our family members. And so I think it’s really important that vaccinated people stop thinking that we’re fully protected.
“We’re very well protected, but as long as there are people around us who are continuing to spread COVID-19, that’s actually making us less safe, and I also think the idea of all of us going back to wearing masks again, a lot of people don’t want to hear that, but we should actually not see this as failure of the vaccine,” she added. “We should see it as the failure of individuals to make the responsible choice. By people saying, ‘I’m not going to get vaccinated,’ they’re actually choosing to endanger everybody else and they’re prolonging the pandemic.”
Joe Scarborough, co-host of MSNBC's Morning Joe, told policymakers — and other Americans — to get serious about vaccination.
“Well, we have something much greater at stake now, and that is, again, keeping America open in the fall, keeping our schools open in the fall,” he said. “It’s time for Joe Biden, it’s time for Democrats, it’s time for serious Republicans to start ignoring the ground noise and start focusing on the signal. And the signal is this: If you’re a schoolteacher, if you’re a nurse, if you’re a cop, you need to get vaccinated. And if you don’t, you need to look for another job.”
Scarborough added that a conservative radio host out of Nashville, Tenn., has changed his tune on COVID vaccination after falling ill himself and becoming hospitalized and fighting for his life.
"A conservative radio host is also changing his tune about getting the coronavirus vaccine after landing in a hospital. Phil Valentine, whose show airs in Nashville, is hospitalized with COVID pneumonia,” Scarborough said. “After expressing resistance to getting the vaccine on air, the 61-year-old is now urging his listeners to get the shot.
“A statement released by the radio station reads in part this: 'Phil would like for his listeners to know that while he has never been an anti-vaxer, he regrets not being more vehemently pro-vaccine,'“ he added. “Meanwhile, Valentine's wife gave an update on his increasingly grave condition on Saturday explaining, 'He is still not getting well. Please pray for me. I am at a breaking point.' And of course, from what we hear, his situation keeps going up and down, up and down. Our prayers are certainly with him and all others right now who are fighting COVID."
CNN host Don Lemon noted that the United States is already home to many laws on the books regarding vaccination, such as laws mandating that children are vaccinated against meningitis in order to attend school.
And the COVID vaccines never should have been politicized in the first place, Lemon added.
“Actually, it’s not a left and right thing. The former president politicized it. That’s who politicized this. Nobody else said you got to get this because Joe Biden said. Nobody did that. The Trump folks did that. That’s who politicized this. The propaganda news network politicized this. That’s who politicized it,” Lemon said, referring to Fox News. “So it shouldn’t be left or right, but for some reason, getting a vaccine has become that and I really don’t understand there is no logic to it. It’s not about freedom. It’s not about anything. It really about common sense and keeping your fellow man, your fellow American safe and alive and especially kids who are now getting it now.”
“Really, really rapid rates of increase”
Meanwhile, medical professionals are experiencing a whole new surge in cases due to the unvaccinated, according to Dr Mark Boom, president and CEO of Houston Methodist Hospital System, which Boom noted, is one of the US hospitals to have imposed a vaccine mandate.
“Unfortunately we’re seeing really, really rapid rates of increase really as fast as we’ve seen throughout the entire pandemic. Put it in perspective, two weeks ago across our system we had about 105 patients. Today we have 302. So almost a tripling in just a two-week period,” he said. “Most of our indicators are up four to five times. So, for example, at the low point in early June, we were admitting nine patients a day to the hospital. Yesterday we admitted 66. And over the last seven days it’s been over 50 a day. So we’re fully projecting that our numbers will continue to increase pretty quickly. Right now unfortunately there’s no end in sight.”
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