Blog No. 296. The Delta Variant: A Republican Virus?

Just as it appeared that we had gained the upper hand in the battle against Covid-19, we have been thwarted, at least temporarily, by two grim phenomena. The first was the arrival of the viciously contagious Delta Variant, and second was a dismaying drop in the rate of vaccinations. There may be little we could have done to prevent the Delta Virus from crossing our borders, but the failure to vaccinate was and is a self-inflicted wound.

There are probably many reasons why people have failed or refused to be vaccinated and they cross all kinds of lines: political, racial, gender, economic. Nevertheless, a virulent strain of the anti-vax virus, if one may call it that, is Republican skepticism or outright opposition. That posture is tragically ironic because rapid development of the vaccines, through Operation Warp Speed, was one of Donald Trump’s few positive achievements in attempting to deal with the coronavirus or, indeed, in his entire presidency.

Trump, of course, has managed to blur his own accomplishment by comments that have been muted, ambiguous or even counterproductive. His July 18 statement fell in the latter category:

Joe Biden kept talking about how good of a job he’s doing on the distribution of the Vaccine that was developed by Operation Warp Speed or, quite simply, the Trump Administration. He’s not doing well at all. He’s way behind schedule, and people are refusing to take the Vaccine because they don’t trust his Administration, they don’t trust the Election results, and they certainly don’t trust the Fake News, which is refusing to tell the Truth.”

The last sentence is key. As Steve Benen at CNN pointed out:

Trump’s new message implicitly suggests that only those who believe President Biden, election results, and independent news organizations are getting the shots. As infection numbers inch higher, this is plainly dangerous. The more vaccinations are politicized, the more it undermines public health.

Trump remains the Goliath of the Republican Party and his clear and forceful support for vaccinations is crucial because vaccine hesitancy or refusal is most pronounced in Republican strongholds. As of July 22, the 25 states with the lowest percent of people vaccinated ranged from South Dakota at 46.36% to Alabama at 33.85%. Trump won 22 of those states, accounting for 198 of his 232 electoral votes. Not surprisingly, 19 of those states, representing 154 electoral votes, were among the 25 states with the highest rates of infection in the seven days prior to July 22.

Even among Republicans, the sources of vaccine antipathy are doubtless varied, encompassing matters of personality and ideology, but their political common denominator is inescapable. In recent days, there have been some belated but hopeful signs, and the question is whether they are too little and too late.

On Capitol Hill, a survey of all 535 members of Congress by CNN in May found that 100 percent of Democrats from both chambers were fully vaccinated, while only 44.8 percent of House Republicans and 92 percent of Republican senators had been. On July 22, CNN reported that nearly half of House Republicans still won’t even say publicly​ whether they are vaccinated against Covid-19. According to CNN, some of the 97 Republicans who aren’t sharing their vaccination status said they didn’t “have a responsibility to model behavior to their constituents.”

Nevertheless, last week welcome support for vaccination came from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Rep. Steve Scalise. McConnell had previously supported vaccination and Scalise, No. 2 in House Republican leadership, finally received his first dose of the Pfizer vaccine over last weekend and urged others to follow suit. At the same time though, House Republican Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy limited himself to a terse and grudging, “I believe in vaccines.”

Surprising many, some support for vaccinations suddenly emerged from the reliable Republican megaphone, Fox News–on which vaccinations had been endlessly questioned and disparaged for months. On Monday, Sean Hannity, who previously called the virus a hoax, said on his broadcast “I can’t say it enough. Enough people have died. We don’t need any more death. And it absolutely makes sense for many Americans to get vaccinated. I believe in science. I believe in the science of vaccination.” Hannity’s comment was widely noted and celebrated, but two days later, an embarrassed Hannity attempted some walking back by earnestly protesting that he “never told anyone to get a vaccine” and that he was “not qualified” to give such advice. There ended Hannity’s brief excursion into reality. Altogether, his performance is unlikely to be persuasive to colleagues such as Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson, let alone the army of his and their viewers.

Sadly, there is every indication that the Delta Variant will still be with us in some dimension when the 2022 elections arrive. Republicans who have denied or ignored the need for vaccinations—and their duty to educate the public as to that need—must be held accountable. In Blog Nos. 289 and 295, I posed questions that I thought every Republican candidate should be asked about the Big Lie and the January 6 insurrection. To those questions I would add:

• Do you agree that vaccinations are important for the health and safety of the American public?
• Were you vaccinated against the Coronavirus? If so, did you disclose that fact to the public?
• What did you do to educate the public as to the safety and importance of getting vaccinated?

It is not too soon to begin asking those questions of every Republican candidate or potential candidate