With the delta variant surging in red states, Republicans don’t seem all that interested in combating the virus. Rand Paul recently promised to fight any precautions meant to limit spread. And Ron DeSantis is more interested in banning masks than stopping Florida’s growing COVID problem.
Marjorie Taylor Greene recently took it a step farther, celebrating Alabama’s low COVID vaccination rate. CNN’s Pamela Brown discussed the moment during a Monday show.
The host asked Dr. Ashish Jha, “But you have all this good information that you’re trying to put out there and other doctors against bad information coming from politicians like Marjorie Taylor Greene. You just saw congresswoman Greene congratulating an Alabama crowd on its low vaccination rate. From a medical perspective, how dangerous is it to be sending that message about a vaccine that could end this pandemic?”
Dr. Ashish Jah rips into Marjorie Taylor Greene and other politicians pushing COVID disinformation. pic.twitter.com/cwtkKRSQld
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The Doctor responded, “It’s puzzling on some level, because for any other disease, you would not turn to your political leader for medical advice. If you had cancer or if you had a heart attack, you wouldn’t call up your congressman or woman and say, ‘What’s the right therapy I should get? [Politician should] let the public health and physician leaders move forward on how to get this thing under control.”
Greene’s take is an extreme one, but many other GOP lawmakers are refusing the push the vaccine. And if they continue to do so, their states could end up with a disaster on their hands.
Todd Neikirk is a New Jersey based politics and technology writer. His work has been featured in psfk.com, foxsports.com and hillreporter.com. He enjoys sports, politics, comic books and spending time at the shore with his family.
