Jimmy Kimmel on vaccine hesitancy: ‘What if we all just did what the health experts told us to do?’
Jimmy Kimmel kicked off his monologue on Monday night by toasting the Oscars, held the prior evening to record-low ratings, down 58% from the year before. “How can something so woke put so many people to sleep?” the host wondered.
The scaled-down affair, with just nominees and presenters in attendance, was held at Los Angeles’s Union Station, “which is the closest many of these stars have been to public transportation”, Kimmel joked.
In other news, Kimmel turned to a report which found 8% of vaccinated Americans have skipped their appointment for a second vaccine dose. “Which is confusing, you know, the second shot is the one that gives you the lasting immunity,” Kimmel said. “It’s like buying fruit on the bottom yogurt and only eating the yogurt part of it. It doesn’t make sense. You have to get both shots.
“I have a wild idea, just hear me out: what if we all just did what the health experts told us to do?” he added. “It’s so not crazy it just might work.”
Stephen Colbert
On The Late Show, Stephen Colbert celebrated news that the European Union will admit American tourists this summer, provided they present a vaccine certificate. “So this is going to be an elite group of only those who are fully inoculated or own printers,” Colbert joked.
Colbert also lamented the report that millions of Americans are skipping their second dose of the vaccine. “I can’t believe it – Americans are saying no to seconds?” he deadpanned.
Many have skipped the second dose out of fear of the side effects, which include flu-like symptoms. “Unlike the coronavirus side effects, which can include death-like death,” said Colbert.
Other people said they felt sufficiently protected with a single dose, reasoning Colbert likened to: “Skydiving is perfectly safe! I gave you half a parachute, let’s go!”
Seth Meyers
“Perhaps the central theme of our politics at the moment is that one of our two major political coalitions is growing more extreme, more authoritarian, more paranoid, and more detached from reality by the day,” said Seth Meyers on Late Night. “Republicans seem to think Joe Biden’s army of antifa super soldiers is gonna come to your house and take your Dr Seuss books and your hamburgers, and I’m only slightly exaggerating.”
Case in point: the culture war over meat, in which Fox News claimed the Biden administration wants to cut Americans’ red meat consumption by 90%, or down to one burger a month.
“It will not surprise you to learn that this entire rightwing conspiracy theory was made up out of thin air after the Daily Mail wrote an article about a University of Michigan study that had nothing to do with Biden’s plan or the Green New Deal,” Meyers explained.
“These people are so deeply detached from reality they think the biggest problems facing America right now – amid a once-in-a-century pandemic, economic crash, rising poverty and child hunger – are embassies flying gay pride flags and totally fictional meat bans,” he added. “What’s next, is antifa going to force you to take the Covid vaccine so Bill Gates can inject you with the chip that tracks how many hamburgers you eat?”
Trevor Noah
And on The Daily Show, Trevor Noah looked into India’s “tsunami” of coronavirus cases. “Things are really dire in India right now,” he said. “Countless people are dying, the hospital system is collapsing, and oxygen is going for $1,000 on the black market.
“And the really sad part about this crisis is that it could’ve been avoided if India’s government hadn’t taken their eye off the ball,” he added, pointing to large gatherings and unmasked political rallies held by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, who successfully demanded Twitter censure those who criticized his recklessness.
“OK, you know things are getting bad when a leader’s response to criticisms of his failures is to try to shut down the criticism, not the failures,” Noah said. “Honestly, you know who must be so jealous of Modi right now? Donald Trump. Because Modi’s got it on lock – he got Twitter to censure his enemies, he’s out here holding huge rallies in the middle of a pandemic, and he’s even got the skin tone that Trump has been trying to get for years.”
To help address the crisis, the US redirected critical medical supplies to India. “I’m glad to see America sending something to the rest of the world that doesn’t have the name of the wrong Super Bowl winner printed on it, but I still feel like America could be doing a lot more,” Noah said, pointing to America’s stockpile of AstraZeneca vaccines, “which, by the way, America has been sitting on for months even though it doesn’t need it.
“America’s basically been treating these vaccines like it’s the old can of pumpkin puree in the back of the cabinet,” he said. “You knew you were never going to use it, but you still held on to it way longer than you should.”
“Don’t forget that it makes America safer when corona is under control in the rest of the world,” Noah explained, as the more the virus spreads, the higher the risk of dangerous mutations.
“Trust me, if a bad mutation emerges, it’s going to come to America,” Noah concluded. “Corona spreads through respiratory droplets. And when have you ever met someone who took a trip to India and didn’t shut up about it?”