Perhaps one day we’ll learn why so many on the right spent the pandemic spreading dangerous misinformation that led to their own base to die en masse. (Meanwhile, we’ll probably never learn what’s wrong with the guy who nonsensically argued that it’s really the libs’ fault.) In the meantime, we still, almost two years into the COVID age, have to regularly deal with conservatives spouting inane nonsense, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene not seeming to know that cancer isn’t contagious.
Then there’s her sometime pal Matt Gaetz. The Florida representative took some time from being under federal investigation over ties to a sex trafficking ring to tell his supporters to, uh, catch COVID.
"The best vaccine we've found is Mother Nature's vaccine. It's contracting the virus" — on OAN, Rep. Matt Gaetz cuts a promo for getting a disease that has killed about 775,000 Americans pic.twitter.com/Z5RlJ5TNpp
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 4, 2021
“The best vaccine we’ve found is Mother Nature’s vaccine. It’s contracting the virus,” Gaetz asserted. “That is what has provided the greatest protection, the most durable protection, over the longest period of time.”
Yeah, none of that’s right. Vaccines are safe, effective, and free. Catching COVID is dangerous and, if you even survive, the antibodies don’t protect one as well as a vaccine.
Gaetz isn’t the first to make this reckless claim, and he won’t be the last. In October, far right pundit Dennis Prager actually bragged about catching COVID on purpose and miraculously surviving thanks to an expensive cocktail of drugs.
When Gaetz incredibly dangerous words went viral, people made sure to call him out.
Explicitly pro-virus. https://t.co/Mi6FjHd14a
— 🕷Dante Atkins🕷 (@DanteAtkins) December 5, 2021
This, my friends, is criminal negligence, coming from a sitting US representative. He should be censored for using his political position to give absolutely wrong medical advice. https://t.co/DOK8FY3N4e
— Rabbi Jill Zimmerman (@RabbiJill) December 5, 2021
They’re trying to kill their own people, part 784 https://t.co/19cMDI56xX
— Reed Galen (@reedgalen) December 5, 2021
Really bold, bracing stuff from a man who is himself 100 percent vaccinated. https://t.co/CQJB0tmOGQ
— David Roth (@david_j_roth) December 5, 2021
This is:
1) not true and
2) sociopathicSo it sums up the GOP pretty well. https://t.co/Yjspc3VzHX
— John Iadarola (@johniadarola) December 5, 2021
https://twitter.com/snpsandsnRNPs/status/1467287818137391112
I just spent a shift in the ICU with unvaccinated people in their 40s-60s with COVID on ventilators. Let @mattgaetz do an interview prone, paralyzed, and with a plastic tube down his throat and we’ll see what he thinks about Mother Nature’s “vaccine.” His words are killing people https://t.co/048uHih2U7
— Dr. Rob Davidson MD, MPH (@DrRobDavidson) December 4, 2021
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1467274217804771331
Ah yes, just like Mother Nature protected us against polio, chicken pox, mumps and measles. I wish saying garbage like this was illegal. https://t.co/atLRX7DmKJ
— Brad Nelson (@fffreakmtg) December 4, 2021
In the meantime, a new strand known as Omicron is currently coursing through the nation, and just in time for the cold weather and the holidays to send people indoors, where COVID more easily spreads. Don’t listen to the Matt Gaetzes and Dennis Pragers and MTGs of the world. Listen to Dr. Fauci and believe that a virus that has killed about 775,000 Americans “overhyped.”