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- Some outlets and lawmakers question COVID-19 vaccines.
- Utah GOP Governor Spencer Cox denounced the rhetoric and said it “kills people.”
- The United States is struggling to get more Americans vaccinated as vaccine misinformation spreads.
- See more stories on the Insider business page.
The Republican governor of Utah said Friday that anti-vaccine messages “are killing people” and begged residents of his state to get vaccinated.
At a press conference on Friday, a reporter asked Gov. Spencer Cox how damaging anti-vaccine rhetoric, especially from right-wing sources, has been to the state’s vaccination effort.
“I think that’s ridiculous,” Cox said after praising Operation Warp Speed from former President Donald Trump. “I don’t think we can take credit for the vaccine and then tell people that there is something wrong with the vaccine.”
“We have these – these talking heads that got the vaccine and tell them not to get the vaccine. That stuff is right, it’s ridiculous. It’s dangerous, it’s damaging, and it kills people. “said Cox. “I mean, it literally kills their supporters. And that doesn’t make sense to me.”
Read more: Governors of all 50 states vaccinated against COVID-19
Conservative media and some Republican lawmakers have sought to cast doubt on vaccines, despite overwhelming evidence of their safety and effectiveness in preventing severe cases of COVID-19.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson blasted President Joe Biden’s vaccine awareness efforts, saying he wanted to “force people to take drugs they don’t want or need” . In another segment, he highlighted people who died after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, implying, without evidence, that the vaccine itself “killed” them.
GOP Senator Ron Johnson has repeatedly highlighted the vaccine’s rare side effects and released false claims about the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness.
GOP Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene also denigrated the safety of the vaccine, urging people in a tweet last week to “Just say no!Her spokesperson told Savannah Morning News in March that Greene “saw no reason” to be vaccinated. When asked by reporters in June if she had been vaccinated, Greene declined to answer.
About 45% of Utahns are fully immunized, close to the national rate of 48%, according to the CDC. But COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are increasing, a trend that is also occurring in other states as the more transmissible Delta variant spreads.
Cox said the only way to deal with the increase in cases is for more people to get vaccinated.
“The disease is much worse than the vaccine,” Cox said. “We desperately need your vaccination.”
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