During an interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci on July 12, CBS This Morning anchor Gayle King said she isn’t planning to allow family members who have opted not to have the Covid-19 vaccine to attend Thanksgiving at her home.
King asked Fauci what concerns him most about the new coronavirus Delta variant, and the Biden administration’s chief medical advisor responded, “First of all, the virus can transmit much more readily from person to person … given the number of people in the country who are not vaccinated, that really is the concern.”
He added, “We’re concerned about those regions of the country — those states, those areas, those cities — in which the level of vaccination is really quite low, hovering around 30 percent or so. You’ve got to do much better than that or you’re going to start seeing … a considerable increase in the number of cases that are going to be localized to those areas with low vaccination rates.”
To this, King admitted that she has some family members who do not want to get the vaccine. To put pressure on them, the anchor said she intends to tell them won’t be welcome at her home for Thanksgiving without it.
“I don’t know how many more times you can say to people, ‘Listen, it will save your life,’” she said to Fauci, adding, “I have this problem with some members of my own family, which I’m now going to ban for Thanksgiving vacation. That’s how strongly I’m taking what you’re saying.”
King has been an outspoken booster of the vaccine in the past. In May, she spoke to late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert about the constant fear she felt at the height of the pandemic, saying, “Honestly. I’ve been so afraid, hunkered down here at home. I’m tired of being scared.” She then described the relief she felt when she was finally eligible to receive the shot.
“I was so afraid to leave the house,” she said of her time during the lockdowns. “We were broadcasting from here, so I’d literally go from my bedroom to the TV room to the kitchen to the bedroom to the TV room. For excitement, I’d go stand in the living room and wave at the birds! ‘Hi, birds! Hi!’ I was so afraid. But now, Stephen, I am vaccinated,” she said. “It is my superpower. I am vaccinated. … I’m taking little baby steps [back into the world].”
King later added, “Here’s the thing: I’m tired of being scared.”
As The Daily Wire has reported, other media commentators have advocated making life “hard” for those who decide to forgo the vaccine.
Last week, CNN medical contributor and former head of Planned Parenthood Dr. Leana Wen argued suggested that unvaccinated people should be banned from attending public events and required to undergo frequent testing for the virus.
“It needs to be hard for people to remain unvaccinated,” she said, later adding, “At some point these mandates, by workplaces, by schools, I think it will be important to say, ‘Hey, you can opt-out, but if you want to opt-out, you have to sign these forms, you have to get twice-weekly testing. Basically, we need to make getting vaccinated the easy choice.”