U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy expressed his strong support for vaccinating children against Covid-19 after actor Matthew McConaughey said he opposed mandating inoculation for kids.
“I couldn’t mandate having to vaccinate the younger kids. I still want to find out more information,” McConaughey, who is considering a run for governor of Texas, said at the New York Times’ DealBook summit on Tuesday.
McConaughey is vaccinated along with his wife. They live with his 90-year-old immunocompromised mother. His eldest son, who is 13, is vaccinated, according to the Times. His two younger children are under the age of 12 and only recently became eligible for the vaccine.
The actor and author went on to forcefully reject claims there is “any kind of scam or conspiracy theory” concerning the vaccines.
“I’m vaccinated. My wife’s vaccinated. I didn’t do it because someone told me I had to. I chose to do it,” he told Andrew Ross Sorkin at the Times summit. “Do I think that there’s any kind of scam or conspiracy theory? Hell no I don’t. We all got to get off that narrative. There’s not a conspiracy theory on the vaccines.”
McConaughey said that “right now” he will not vaccinate his two youngest children against the virus, explaining “we go slow on vaccinations, even before Covid.”
The U.S. surgeon general
Murthy replied by pointing out that “Covid is not harmless for children.”
“Many kids have died. Sadly, hundreds of children — thousands — have been hospitalized, and as a dad of a child who has been hospitalized several years ago for another illness, I would never wish upon any parent they have a child that ends up in the hospital,” Murthy said.
“And the vaccines have shown in these trials for children 5 through 11 they are more at 90% effective in protecting our kids from symptomatic infection, and they are remarkably safe as well,” he continued.
“Please consider strongly getting your children vaccinated,” Murthy said. “There’s a lot of noise out there. Talk to your doctor.”
Watch above, via CNN.