So much for “Friends.”
TV star Jennifer Aniston is defending her decision to cut friends out of her life if they haven’t been vaccinated against COVID-19.
In an Instagram post, Aniston responded to a fan who asked, “But if [Jennifer’s] vaccinated she’s protected correct? Why be worried about [having unvaxxed people] around her?”
“Because if you have the variant, you are still able to give it to me,” Aniston explained, referring to reports that some who have had the vaccine have gotten the new Delta variant of the virus.
“I may get slightly sick but I will not be admitted to a hospital and or die,” she said. “BUT I CAN give it to someone who does not have the vaccine and whose health is compromised (or has a previous existing condition) — and therefore I would put their lives at risk.”
So, in a nutshell, it’s not you, it’s me.
She later posted again, saying “What doesn’t kill you mutates and tries again.”
Earlier this week, Aniston, 52, told InStyle magazine that she dropped from her life some people who didn’t get the vaccine.
“There’s still a large group of people who are anti-vaxxers or just don’t listen to the facts. It’s a real shame,” she said in her interview for the September issue. “I’ve just lost a few people in my weekly routine who have refused or did not disclose [whether they had been vaccinated], and it was unfortunate.”
Aniston also said it’s a “moral and professional obligation to inform” people of the vaccine’s upside, but she did acknowledge that everyone can make their own decisions.
“It’s tricky because everyone is entitled to their own opinion — but a lot of opinions don’t feel based in anything except fear or propaganda,” she said.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Thursday that fully vaccinated people who get a Covid-19 breakthrough infection can transmit the virus.
“Our vaccines are working exceptionally well,” Walensky told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “They continue to work well for Delta [variant], with regard to severe illness and death — they prevent it. But what they can’t do anymore is prevent transmission.”
“If you’re going home to somebody who has not been vaccinated, to somebody who can’t get vaccinated, somebody who might be immunosuppressed or a little bit frail, somebody who has comorbidities that put them at high risk, I would suggest you wear a mask in public indoor settings,” Walensky said.
Other health experts are saying that more mutated viruses are coming.
“The next variant is just around the corner, if we do not all get vaccinated,” Adm. Brett Giroir, the former coronavirus testing czar under President Donald Trump, told CNN’s Chris Cuomo.
“I just beg the American people to understand that to defeat this virus, we have to get everybody’s level of immunity up, and that’s just the way it is,” he added.