Trump Admin Surgeon General Urges More Vaccinations After Colin Powell Passes Away: He Died Because ‘We Didn’t Take the Proper Measures to Lower Spread’

Jerome Adams, who served as Surgeon General during the Trump administration, said the tragic death of Colin Powell shows the urgency of getting more people vaccinated.

Adams appeared on CNN Monday night with Chris Cuomo to discuss the passing of a man he greatly admired and considered a mentor.

“Colin Powell, he paved the way for all Black people — Democrats, Republicans, independents — to be able to be in these high-profile government positions like Secretary of State, like Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, like Surgeon General,” he told Cuomo. “And I think about that every single time someone asks me, ‘Why did you stay?’ I think about Colin Powell.”

Adams said he was “blessed” to hear Powell speak with him at one of his lowest points.

They also discussed Powell dying of covid-19. Powell was vaccinated but had multiple myeloma, which compromised his immune system.

Adams pushed back on the irresponsible commentary that Powell’s death raises questions about vaccine efficacy. Earlier in the segment Cuomo referred to the much-criticized, since-deleted tweet from Fox News’ John Roberts.

“We’ve got people out there who are in the vaccine-resistant crowd,” Adams continued, “we’ve got people who have completely different agendas, agendas that have nothing to do with vaccines, and as you mentioned, want to divide us.”

He’s troubled that people are being fed misinformation, and emphasized that the number of breakthrough covid-19 deaths this year has been an incredibly small fraction compared to the number of unvaccinated deaths.

We know a disproportionate number of them have been people with co-morbidities, as General Powell had. So he was someone primed for a breakthrough infection. He’s someone who did what he was supposed to do. He got vaccinated, but it proves we can’t just say we’re only going to protect the vulnerable, we’re only going to worry about those people getting vaccinated and everyone else doesn’t matter. We all matter. And the fact is that General Powell died because we didn’t take the proper measures to lower spread in this country. We didn’t do everything that we could.

He made the point that there are large numbers of people who will be dangerously vulnerable to covid-19 if “we continue to let this virus run unabated.”

“Please, please hear me, for the sake of General Powell and everyone else out there who is vulnerable and who is doing the right thing, please consider getting your vaccine if you haven’t yet.”

You can watch above, via CNN.