Ex-Covid tsar urges Donald Trump to tackle Republican vaccine hesitancy
Donald Trump’s former coronavirus testing tsar has urged the former president to address Covid vaccine hesitancy among Republicans, even as the man who some say has assumed Trump’s platform and megaphone, the Fox News host Tucker Carlson, criticized vaccine outreach by the Biden administration.
Several recent surveys have shown vaccine hesitancy is highest among Republican men. Public health experts are scrambling to respond.
Speaking to CNN, Adm Brett Giroir, in charge of coronavirus testing in the Trump administration, asked the former president and former vice-president Mike Pence, who have both been vaccinated, “to actively encourage all of their followers to get the vaccine”.
“We all have to get together and urge every American,” Giroir said. “The people who follow the former president are very committed to President Trump, and I think his leadership still matters a great deal.”
Giroir also highlighted the Trump administration’s role in getting the vaccine made, with its Operation Warp Speed program.
“This is something that the Trump administration developed under its time,” he said.
Trump has encouraged followers to get vaccinated, recommending the step in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, but he has been more muted than the other living former presidents.
In an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll last week, 49% of Republican men, 47% of Trump supporters and 41% of Republicans overall said they would not get a vaccine if one was available to them. In the survey, 11% of Democrats and 34% of independents said they would not get a vaccine.
In a CBS News poll on Sunday, a majority of Republicans aged 65 and older said they had been vaccinated. Republicans under 45 were most likely to be vaccine hesitant.
As of Tuesday, more than 71 million people in the US, or 21% of the population, had received a first vaccine dose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
On Monday night, Carlson, host of one of the highest-rated shows on US cable news, demanded public health experts provide more information about vaccines. He also lectured such experts about how they are providing information about vaccines.
“If you want them to take the vaccine, don’t berate them, don’t issue more commands, calm their fears by rationally explaining the benefits and risks of the vaccine,” Carlson said.
His 18-minute segment included a video of the CDC director, Rochelle Walensky, explaining guidance for people who have been vaccinated.
Carlson responded: “They lecture us like they’re our parents, which they are absolutely not.”
Carlson’s career as a rightwing provocateur has had many slumps but he has seen a recent resurgence in
support. In December, he said he was “strongly supportive” of vaccines – in a segment in which he also questioned the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines.
The same month, Rupert Murdoch, Fox News’s owner, was vaccinated.
“I would like to thank the key workers and the [UK National Health Service] staff who have worked so hard throughout the pandemic, and the amazing scientists who have made this vaccine possible,” Murdoch said. “I strongly encourage people around the world to get the vaccine as it becomes available.”