- Some leaders in the Republican party are now encouraging people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
- Infectious disease experts said they welcome the change in message but add that GOP leaders need to do more.
- They also suggest that local Republican leaders in organizations such as the chamber of commerce and the Rotary Club speak up on the issue.
As COVID-19 cases again surge across the nation, Republican leaders who may have wanted to steer clear of vaccine pronouncements are slowly dipping their toes in the “encourage the vax” water.
However, infectious disease experts say while that trickle of change is progress, a stronger united message at both the national and local level is what the United States needs most.
In other words: It’s not enough.
“There is no doubt in my mind that the politicization of COVID has led directly and absolutely without a question to where we are right now,” said Jeremy Levin, PhD, chairman and chief executive officer of Ovid Therapeutics and former CEO of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization.
To Levin, who has interacted in the biomedical world around the globe, the groundwork for deep mistrust was laid even before the vaccines were created.
“It all stems back to the original denial of the pandemic in early 2020,” he told Healthline.
“The complete contempt by the then administration to (hide) the fact that they were failing to control this,” he said, paired with what he sees as “conflicting messages” that seemed to politicize the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and “massive disinformation from the media, particularly FOX news and FOX radio hosts,” all deeply entrenched mistrust in the minds of many.
Now, with the slow shift toward pro-vaccination, some who never spoke up about the need for vaccines are.
Last week, FOX host Sean Hannity encouraged his viewers to take COVID-19 seriously, although he stopped short of fully endorsing vaccinations.
Over the weekend, former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who is running for governor of Arkansas, announced she’s been inoculated with the “Trump vaccine” and suggested others consider doing the same.
Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the number two Republican in House leadership and a long-time vaccine resister, was vaccinated recently and is urging his constituents to do so.
But still, the GOP House in particular has a long way to go to do what they should to help turn the anti-vax tide, Levin said.
Nearly half of House Republicans won’t say if they’ve been vaccinated, according to a CNN poll.
That sets the parts of the nation that have low vaccination rates up for a tough battle, Levin said.
“The fix will not be simple,” Levin said. “They’ve laid the seeds for a huge national disruption. By not showing leadership in a simple medical issue, they have provided a haven for the virus to grow stronger.”
Healthline reached out to both House and Senate Republican leaders last week.
A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who did urge the public to get vaccinated last week, told Healthline that other than that statement, “we don’t have anything else to add at the moment.”
A spokesperson for the House GOP Doctors Caucus declined an interview to discuss the subject, saying “we’d like to hold off on an interview for now.”
Calls and emails to Senator Mitt Romney, R-Utah, as well as many members of that GOP Doctors Caucus went unanswered.
Source: healthline