Former White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Tuesday that Republican-leaning states have seen more COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations than Democratic-leaning states because of “political ideology.”
Co-host Jonathan Lemire said, “We’re in a moment right now where that division has made it politicized. Vaccination in particular has become politicized, with not just Donald Trump but other Republicans saying don’t get the COVID vaccine, don’t get it. Other prominent figures saying you shouldn’t get other vaccines either. This is standard stuff that everyone has known for decades. With so much misinformation and anger and outright hesitancy to get vaccinated, how worried are you about whether we’ll be able to handle whatever the next pandemic is?”
“I am very concerned about the misinformation and disinformation being spread about a life-saving intervention that is fully scientifically proven. It’s astonishing that so many people would make decisions that actually put their lives at risk because of political ideology,” Fauci said. “The fact is, and this hurts me as a physician and scientist, that when you compare red states to blue states, red states have more deaths and hospitalizations than blue states because fewer Republicans and Democrats have been vaccinated. It’s horrifying that people are suffering and dying because of misinformation that is linked to political ideology.”
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