As national and global vaccination rates continue to rise, one place that has long had access to COVID-19 vaccines is hitting an unexpected roadblock to reaching a higher threshold of immunity: the United States Congress.
Members of the House of Representatives were first offered the coronavirus vaccine back in December 2020. With only 435 lawmakers in the chamber, it should have been easy to achieve a nearly 100-percent rate of vaccination within the House.
Public health officials have supported full vaccination of Congress as an important goal, as it may change the minds of reluctant Americans across the country. As a recent NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll has demonstrated, 41 percent of GOP voters across the country say they will not get the vaccine — compared to 30 percent of the general population.
However, fully one-quarter of the House has not yet received the vaccination, reporting from Axios has detailed.
There are a few mundane explanations. Some of those lawmakers may have not updated their vaccination status. Others could have health complications that prevent them from being vaccinated for the coronavirus or from receiving vaccinations in general.
However, some Republican lawmakers simply refuse to get the vaccine.
“I won’t be taking it. The survival rate is too high for me to want it,” Rep. Madison Cawthorne (R-North Carolina) said in December, despite Congressional testimony from Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, explaining that COVID-19 is “10-times more lethal than the seasonal flu.”
“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,” Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colorado) also said in December.
Buck’s comments on the vaccine may have also worked to have spread misinformation about it. “I’m more concerned about the safety of the vaccine than I am the side effects of the disease,” Buck said, in spite of several documented studies that show the coronavirus vaccine is safe.
The misinformation about COVID-19 and the vaccine to prevent its spread isn’t limited to the House — over in the Senate, too, there are Republicans who are spreading lies.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) was recently interviewed about whether he would get the vaccine. Johnson, who contracted coronavirus last fall, wrongly said his infection was sufficient to ensure future immunity.
.@SenRonJohnson tells me he doesn't believe he needs the vaccine since he already was diagnosed with COVID-19 last fall.
"No I had COVID, so I don’t believe…I think that probably provides me the best immunity possible actually having the disease.” pic.twitter.com/6VtbbXcsVW— Emilee Fannon (@Emilee_Fannon) March 10, 2021
“I had COVID. I think that probably provides me the best immunity possible, actually having had the disease,” Johnson said earlier this month.
In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that everyone who is able get the vaccine, including individuals who have already had the virus in their systems, because there is a rare but possible chance to get reinfected with COVID-19.
Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wisconsin) wasn’t having it.
“Attention @SenRonJohnson. You need to get vaccinated to be safe for others around you,” Pocan tweeted a couple of days after Johnson’s interview. “Less conspiracy theories, more vaccines and science please.”
Former President Donald Trump has also received criticism for not doing more to push for vaccines. Trump received his vaccination for coronavirus prior to leaving the White House. However, he did so in secret, refusing to publicize it despite other former presidents who had in order to promote the vaccine’s use.
Many, including Fauci, have since called on Trump to encourage his supporters (47 percent of whom say they won’t get vaccinated, per the NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll) to get inoculated.
“How such a large proportion of a certain group of people would not want to get vaccinated merely because of political consideration, it makes absolutely no sense,” Fauci said on “Meet the Press” this weekend.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy