In response to new polls showing Republican voters’ hesitation to take the coronavirus vaccine, Protect Our Care’s Coronavirus War Room Director Zac Petkanas released the following statement:
“Republican lawmakers’ refusal to encourage the country to get vaccinated is a dangerous and irresponsible precedent that has led to widespread skepticism among Republican voters, and especially Trump voters, about taking the vaccine, with many outright refusing to take it.
“GOP leaders and conservative media could very easily change their tune and encourage their supporters and viewers to take the vaccine, but their refusal to do so is not only dangerous, but extremely hypocritical, as many including former President Trump have already taken the vaccine.
“This deliberate misinformation campaign waged by Republican lawmakers is a public health crisis in itself and will only prolong this pandemic and impede the progress that President Biden has made to defeat it.”
GOP VACCINE HESITANCY FACT SHEET:
Many GOP leaders and conservative media members have refused to encourage their followers to get the coronavirus vaccine, choosing rather to spread lies about the vaccine and actively encourage dangerous vaccine hesitancy.
- Sen. Ron Johnson Said He Did Not Plan To Receive The Coronavirus Vaccine. “Reporter: ‘Did you get the vaccine or are you planning to get vaccinated?’ Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.): ‘No, I had covid, so I don’t believe, you know, I think that probably provides me the best immunity possible, actually having had the disease.’” [Washington Post, 3/15/21]
- Sen. Rand Paul Said He Did Not Plan To Receive The Coronavirus Vaccine. “Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky and a former ophthalmologist, said he was ‘going with the science on this one” in refusing a vaccine. ‘I have not chosen to be vaccinated because I got it naturally,’ Mr. Paul, who tested positive for the virus last March, recently told reporters. (The science says the opposite; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people get vaccinated even if they have already had the coronavirus.)” [New York Times, 3/19/21]
- Republican Congressman Madison Cawthorn Said He Would Not Receive The Coronavirus Vaccine. “While the makeup of those refusing or declining to reveal their vaccine status is not known, more Republicans have spoken against taking it than Democrats. Madison Cawthorn, a 25-year-old Republican representative, has said in the past that he won’t be taking a vaccine because ‘the survival rate [from Covid] is too high for me to want it’.” [The Independent, 3/15/21]
- Former President Trump Quietly Received The Coronavirus Vaccine In January. “Former President Donald J. Trump and his wife, Melania, quietly received coronavirus vaccinations in January before leaving the White House, an adviser said on Monday. The news came a day after Mr. Trump appeared at the CPAC political conference in Orlando, Fla., where for the first time he encouraged people to go get vaccinated. […] The secret approach by Mr. Trump came as a number of his supporters have expressed resistance to the vaccine, and as other officials have tried setting an example by getting the shot in public.” [New York Times, 3/1/21]
- Trump Did Not Participate In A Recent PSA That Featured All Other Living Former Presidents Encouraging Americans To Get Vaccinated. “However, Trump did not participate in a recent public service announcement by the Ad Council that featured all of the other living former presidents encouraging Americans to get vaccinated, an omission Fauci said was ‘puzzling.’” [Washington Post, 3/14/21]
- The Republican Governor Of Arkansas Said The Reason Arkansans Were Resistant To The Vaccine Was Because Arkansas Is “A Very Pro-Trump State In Terms Of The Last Election, And So We See That Resistance.” “During an interview Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation, Arkansas’s Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson seemed to pin resistance to getting vaccinated squarely on Trump. ‘The poll numbers are troubling, because in Arkansas it’s a very pro-Trump state in terms of the last election, and so we see that resistance whenever we’re opening up eligibility for the vaccine,’ he said. ‘We’re moving through it very quickly because we’re not having everybody sign up to take it.’” [Vox, 3/14/21]
- Tucker Carlson Of Fox News Hosted A ‘COVID Contrarian’ On His Show, Where The Man Alleged That “People [Are] Getting Vaccinated And [Then Getting] Sick And Dying” In Israel. “Carlson has spent recent weeks ratcheting up vaccine-related outrage and confusion. On March 9, Carlson hosted ‘COVID contrarian’ Alex Berenson to discuss guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommending that people who have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus continue to wear masks and adhere to some precautions. Berenson used this opportunity to claim that vaccine effectiveness has been overstated, and he even added a conspiratorial element to it by saying that he believed ‘the CDC is very afraid that there will be cases of people getting vaccinated and sick or dying, as has happened in Israel. We know that’s happened in Israel.’” [Media Matters, 3/18/21]
- Laura Ingraham Of Fox News Hosted A Doctor Who Claimed That Vaccines Were “Downright Dangerous.” “During the December 2 episode of her show, Ingraham hosted retired microbiologist Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, who claimed that the vaccines were ‘downright dangerous’ and would lead to ‘doom.’ On December 14, Ingraham repeated the long-debunked claim that COVID-19 is ‘less lethal than the flu,’ and her guest baselessly suggested that North Dakota and South Dakota may not even need vaccines because the states had achieved natural herd immunity, which was simply not true. That same evening, Ingraham aired a video of deceptively edited and out-of-context clips from public health experts and people in media discussing the pandemic.” [Media Matters, 3/18/21]
- Sean Hannity Of Fox News Said That He Was “Actually Beginning To Have Doubts” About The Vaccine Shortly After Biden Was Inaugurated. “Then Joe Biden took office. On January 26, Hannity, who had championed virtually every project that Trump slapped his name on, including vaccine development, announced on air that he was ‘actually beginning to have doubts’ about the vaccine.” [Media Matters, 3/18/21]
And Republican voters are taking these cues seriously, with as many as 47 percent of Trump voters saying that they will not get the coronavirus vaccine.
- 49 Percent Of Republican Men, And 47 Percent Of Trump Voters Said They Did Not Plan To Get A Coronavirus Vaccine. ““Among Republican men, 49% said they did not plan to get the shot, compared with just 6% of Democratic men who said the same. Among those who said they supported President Trump in the 2020 election, 47% said they did not plan to get a coronavirus vaccine compared with just 10% of Biden supporters.” [NPR, 3/12/21]
- CBS: 33 Percent Of Republicans Said They Would Not Get The Coronavirus Vaccine. “Question – Will you get the coronavirus vaccine when it becomes available to you? No – 33 percent of Republicans.” [CBS News, 3/14/21]
- 41 Percent Of Republicans Said They Don’t Plan To Get The Coronavirus Vaccine. “By the numbers: 41% of Republicans say they don’t plan to get a vaccine if it’s available to them. Only 33% say they do plan to get vaccinated.” [Axios, 2/25/21]
- Multiple Polls Show That At Least 40 Percent Of Republicans Say They Are Unlikely To Get The Vaccine, Including One Poll That Found 47 Percent Of Trump Voters Said They Would Not Get The Vaccine. “Last week, a Monmouth University poll found that 56 percent of Republicans either wanted to wait and see further before getting a vaccine or said they will likely never get one, compared to just 23 percent of Democrats. Another poll, from NPR/PBS/Marist, found that 47 percent of Trump voters and 41 percent of Republicans said they will not get the vaccine when made available to them. And a Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll found the number of Republicans refusing to get the vaccine was 28 percent, while the number of Black Americans and Hispanic Americans who felt that stood at 14 percent and 12 percent respectively.” [NBC, 3/14/21]