There have been some encouraging developments lately from our country’s leaders — current and past — as they present a more unified front on the importance of vaccines and boosters for COVID-19.
President Biden, in a speech last week, praised former President Trump and his administration for their work in speeding up the development of vaccines.
“Let me be clear. Thanks to the prior administration and our scientific community, America was one of the first countries to get the vaccine,” Biden said. “Thanks to my administration and the hard work for Americans, we led a rollout, made America first in getting shots in arms.”
Trump was taken aback by the praise. “I was surprised to hear it,” Trump told Fox News. “I think it was a terrific thing, and I think it makes a lot of people happy.”
It was just two days earlier that a video emerged showing Trump on the receiving end of a smattering of boos when he told the crowd that he has received his booster shot. Trump then said, “That’s all right. It’s a very tiny group over there.”
Trump expanded on his praise for the vaccine in an interview with Candace Owens, a conservative host with the Daily Wire. He told Owens that “the vaccine is one of the greatest achievements of mankind.”
He added that “all three vaccines … are very, very good,” and they were developed in less than a year when “it was supposed to take five to 12 years.”
That prompted Biden press secretary Jen Psaki to tweet, “Just going to echo former President Trump here on the safety and efficacy of vaccines.”
Trump’s hearty advocacy for vaccines has drawn fire from anti-vaxers. Owens posted a peculiar reaction on Instragram where she questioned Trump’s conclusions about the vaccine.
“He comes from a generation — I’ve seen other people that are older have the exact same perspective, like, they came from a time before TV, before the Internet, before being able to conduct their independent research.”
What? Before TV? Perhaps Owens came from a time when there were no history books.
Right wing radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones really went after Trump. “This is an emergency Christmas Day warning to President Trump,” Jones said. “You are either completely ignorant about the so called ‘vaccine’ gene therapy that you helped ram through with Operation Warp Speed, or you are one of the most evil men who has ever lived.”
Maybe, in a way, this is a good thing. Trump sent a lot of conflicting signals on the virus during the final year of his presidency. That was a mistake and a disservice because it fueled mistrust of health advisories about COVID and resistance to the vaccines.
But the safe and effective vaccines were developed by scientists at amazing speed. Who knows how many lives that has saved.
And now Trump is firmly on the vaccine bandwagon. That is positive, especially considering that some view their vaccine hesitance through a political prism. His position is driving ardent anti-vaxers deeper into a corner dominated by conspiracy theorists and shameless hucksters.
