Kamala Harris promotes the vaccines she once derided
Harris could have played a critical role in reducing vaccine hesitancy among Blacks. She chose partisan politics over saving Black lives.
Printed in the Herald-Times, March 18, 2021
To the Editor:
I am very pleased with the rapid rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations, and I intend to get a vaccine as soon as I am eligible for it. But we should not forget Vice President Kamala Harris' shameful decision to play politics with the vaccines last September. See https://wapo.st/3ei3rzN.
Kamala Harris openly undermined public trust in the exact same vaccines that she is currently touting and helping roll out. She sacrificed public trust in medical experts in order to take a partisan political swipe at Donald Trump. She undermined public trust at a critical time, when we needed everyone on board for what we knew both then and now would be our way out of this disastrous pandemic.
As the first woman of color to be nominated on a major-party ticket, Kamala Harris could have played a critical role in reducing vaccine hesitancy among blacks. In a Pew Research poll, 61% of blacks said they would definitely or probably get a COVID-19 vaccine, while 69% of whites and 70% of Hispanics said they would get a vaccine. See https://pewrsr.ch/3v479Dh.
That Harris knowingly chose to dishonestly undermine public trust at a critical time is utterly repulsive, and her ongoing hypocrisy is even more repulsive.