Dr. Ashish Jha Reacts to Marjorie Taylor Greene Touting Low Alabama Vaccine Rate: What’s the Political Gain of ‘Extending This Pandemic?’

Dr. Ashish Jha criticized lawmakers like Marjorie Taylor Greene continuing to push anti-vaccine rhetoric as covid-19 cases rise across the country.

CNN’s Pamela Brown started by asking Jha about recent covid-19 deaths in Florida. He said, “It’s tragic, and it’s obviously completely preventible, and it tells me that the misinformation that has been spreading and targeting people is unfortunately too often working.”

Brown followed up by noting the problem is misinformation coming from prominent officials like Congresswoman Greene. Last week in Alabama she approvingly touted state having one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country — which the audience applauded.

“From a medical perspective, how dangerous is it to be sending that message about a vaccine that could end this pandemic?” Brown asked.

“It’s puzzling on some level,” Jha responded, “because for any other disease, you would not turn to your political leader for medical advice. If you had cancer or if you had a heart attack, you wouldn’t call up your congressman or woman and say, ‘What’s the right therapy I should get?'”

He said politicians need to “let the public health and physician leaders move forward on how to get this thing under control.”

“So then what is your message to lawmakers who say these things?” Brown asked.

“I’d ask them to just stop talking about things they don’t know much about,” Jha added.

He made a point of saying that’s “a bipartisan comment” telling political leaders, “Don’t get into this, it’s really outside of their area of expertise. Highlight the science and highlight the public health voices and let’s get this pandemic behind us.”

“It’s really not clear what the political gain is of extending this pandemic further.”

You can watch above, via CNN.