Rep. Buck says he won’t get COVID-19 vaccine
Cites concerns over vaccine’s safety, says focus should be on vaccinating ‘at-risk’
U.S. Rep. Ken Buck said Friday that he will not be taking a COVID-19 vaccine.
“It is my choice,” the Windsor Republican told Fox Business Channel. “I have the freedom to decide if I’m going to take a vaccine or not and in this case I am not going to take the vaccine.”
Government officials in Colorado and elsewhere have urged Americans to take the coronavirus vaccine, which the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed began distributing this week.
On Friday, Vice President Mike Pence, his wife Karen and Surgeon General Jerome Adams received the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine on television to raise awareness and confidence in the injection, which has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration following clinical trials.
Buck praised the vaccine on social media and in remarks to The Denver Post on Friday, calling it “great” and “an absolute miracle” that will save lives. But on Fox Business, he voiced concerns about possible adverse side effects from it.
“I am more concerned about the safety of the vaccine than I am the side effects of the disease,” the congressman said, referring to COVID-19.
“I’m a healthy person and I think most Americans are healthy,” Buck added. “I think what we should do is we should focus on the at-risk populations in America, make sure those are the peo
ple who get this vaccine first, make sure the health care workers that want the vaccine get the vaccine as soon as possible. But I am not going to take a vaccine.”
In a phone inter view after the television appearance, Buck told The Post that he spoke to medical professionals before making his decision. The congressman is a cancer survivor and will turn 62 years old in Febr uar y.
He added that he wasn’t trying to suggest the vaccine is unsafe. “What I was trying to say is that every individual should be allowed to weigh various factors.”
State Rep. Kyle Mullica, a Thornton Democrat and emergency room nurse who was vaccinated earlier this week, said Buck’s rhetoric harms the efforts of health care workers who are tr ying to get the coronavirus pandemic under control.
“It boggles the mind that at a time when elected officials like Ken Buck should be part of the solution in encouraging people to get vaccinated when they are able to, Buck is instead choosing to indulge the antiscience and anti-vaxxer wing of the GOP and spread unfounded fears about the vaccine,” he said in a statement.
Buck is not the first prominent Colorado Republican to say or suggest he will not receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Congresswoman-elect Lauren Boebert, a Rifle Republican, told Colorado Public Radio on Dec. 9 that she was undecided.
“At this time, I don’t see that we are in a class of people that need the vaccination,” the 34-year-old said of herself and her husband. “We are healthy. We’re young. I am against any sort of governmentmandated vaccination. That’s not the proper role of government to force injections of any kind in anyone.”
Buck also opposes government mandates regarding the COVID-19 vaccine, he told The Post on Friday. He also takes issue with members of Congress, some of whom are young and physically fit, receiving a vaccine sooner than constituents.