After a relatively mild summer, COVID-19 cases are spiking once more, with health officials warning of a potential “fifth wave” as winter sends people back indoors. Should that happen, things will be a bit different than in the past: The majority of hospitalizations and deaths will likely happen mostly in cases with low vaccination rates. The GOP has not made it easy to change their minds and save their lives; Ted Cruz has even come after Big Bird. (Meanwhile, Breitbart published a surreal conspiracy theory blaming it all on…people who want people to get vaxxed.) But Stephen Colbert tried to find a way: baseball talk.
On Friday’s The Late Show, Colbert said he was tired of using “wave” metaphors to describe seesawing COVID cases. So why not try invoking the national sport instead?
“If we do get a fifth wave, it won’t affect the entire country equally, because the places hardest hit tend to have low vaccination rates,” Colbert told the crowd. “At this point, staying unvaccinated is like wearing a Yankees hat to a Red Sox game: You’re probably gonna end up in the hospital and it’s your own damn fault.”
Colbert also played a clip of California Governor Gavin Newsom warning of a fifth wave arriving with the cold weather. “Winter is coming,” he said, with a nod to Game of Thrones. Colbert also took umbrage with that.
“Makes sense to quote Game of Thrones, because the pandemic is already way too long and it’s not going to end well,” he cracked, reminding people of the show’s controversial capper.
You can watch Colbert’s opening monologue in the video above. The pandemic business begins around the 2:30 mark.
