Donald Trump is taking credit for the coronavirus vaccine. But Sheryl Gay Stolberg reports that many of his supporters say they won't get vaccinated:
Elizabeth Graves, an ardent supporter of President Trump, is not opposed to vaccines. She said she had taken flu shots and pneumonia shots and, having just turned 50, was interested in being vaccinated against shingles.
But Ms. Graves, a legal transcriptionist in Starkville, Miss., said she would not be taking a coronavirus vaccine — and the sight of Vice President Mike Pence rolling up his sleeve to get vaccinated on live television on Friday, she added, would not change her mind.
Lawrence Palmer, 51, a field service engineer in Boiling Springs, Pa., and Brandon Lofgren, 25, who works in his family’s trucking and construction business in rural Wisconsin, said they felt the same way. All are fans of Mr. Trump, and echoed Ms. Graves, who said she was “suspicious” of government and that Mr. Pence’s vaccination “doesn’t mean a thing to me.”
It is a paradox of the pandemic: Helping speed the development of a coronavirus vaccine may be one of Mr. Trump’s proudest accomplishments, but at least in the early stages of the vaccine rollout, there is evidence that a substantial number of his supporters say they do not want to get it.
And therein lies the essential lunacy behind Donald Trump's presidency:
For the most part, public opinion has been swinging in favor of vaccination. Seventy-one percent of Americans are willing to be vaccinated, up from 63 percent in September, according to a survey released this week by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Still, the survey found that Republicans were the most likely to be hesitant, with 42 percent saying they would probably not or definitely not be vaccinated, as compared with 12 percent of Democrats.
The Republican response to Trump and the vaccine is essentially schizophrenic -- another sign of the insanity which has swept over the United States.
Image: Tiltfactor
8 comments:
Wait till the base finds out that the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine was developed by Muslim immigrants!
Cap
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-12-14/trump-strutted-like-a-player-but-barr-mcconnell-and-powell-played-him?sref=qD0EKJAt
That will be the final straw, Cap. For Trumpists, anyone who is not white is a danger to public health.
O'Brien knows Trump well, POV. He wrote a book about Trump. Trump sued him -- and O'Brien won.
The origins of these vaccines have many founders. At the root, however, is Hungarian immigrant Katalin Kariko, whose research breakthrough into mRNA led to the development of both Pfizer's and Moderna's vaccines. Canadian Derek Rossi, one of the co-founders of Moderna, now says that Kariko and her collaborator, Drew Weissman, deserve the Nobel Prize. My guess is they'll probably get it. Long before Covid-19 appeared, Kariko knew this modified RNA would work. She feared she might not live long enough to see it succeed. That's why Pfizer and Moderna produced highly effective vaccines in such short order. They didn't have to invent anything. The modified RNA already existed. "Operation Warp Speed" is a Trump fantasy. That's why our governments were lining up buying vaccines long before they were approved. Our science types knew that the Kariko/Weissman RNA was a sure winner. All they had to do was the formality of clinical trials. It had virtually nothing to do with Trump and Pence.
That's Trump's standard operating procedure, Mound. He takes credit for what he hasn't done. And he blames others for what he has done.
With polls like that showing such disregard for vaccines and public safety will Canada ever open it's borders to the USA?
I think it could well be the Canadian political issue of 2021.
TB
A very good question, TB. With one American dying every thirty-three seconds, it would be pure folly to reopen the border.
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