Comedian and HBO host Bill Maher got into a bit of a verbal sparring match with “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane over the COVID-19 vaccines and mandates, arguing that the United States had failed to recognize the value of natural immunity.
The discussion came about during the latest episode of Maher’s podcast, “Club Random,” and Maher posited that pushing the vaccine on everyone — even those who had already contracted the virus — was “powerful stupid.”
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🔥 Bill Maher & Seth MacFarlane Get Into a HEATED Debate Over the COVID Vaccine
“Djokovic didn’t need it. Aaron Rodgers didn’t need it…You completely want to shut your eyes to the fact that there are repercussions to all medical interventions including a vaccine!” pic.twitter.com/bafg4BmvBF
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) December 30, 2023
“Why are doctors wrong about so much?” Maher asked.
MacFarlane protested that doctors were right about a lot of things as well, but Maher pushed back.
“Very often, people who aren’t doctors have been righter about things,” Maher continued, and when MacFarlane asked for an example, he went straight to the handling of COVID-19 vaccinations in the United States.
“I would think — this country did not allow for natural immunity to be considered. And I know this is a subject dear to your heart. Like, even if you had the disease, you still had to get a vaccine. That’s powerful stupid. They don’t do that in Europe,”Maher explained.
MacFarlane objected, pointing to the number of people who have contracted the virus multiple times and arguing that there was no real “natural immunity” to be had. “Don’t you know people have had COVID four or five times? I do. That’s not natural immunity. There’s no immunity there.”
“Probably because you’ve had too many vaccines,” Maher replied, and noted that because of the way vaccines work, mass vaccination could have resulted in large swaths of the population whose immune systems were under increased stress.
MacFarlane pushed back, saying that vaccination reduced the risk of hospitalization and death.
“But that’s assuming that all people are alike,” Maher said. “And that is one of the giant fallacies in your way of thinking, we are not all alike.”
He went on to argue that it was the wrong decision for the vaccine to be pushed on everyone — even those who were not considered high risk.
“[Novak] Djokovic didn’t need it. Aaron Rodgers didn’t need it,” Maher continued over MacFarlane’s objections. “You completely want to shut your eyes to the fact that there are repercussions to all medical interventions including a vaccine!”