Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says she hasn’t received a Covid-19 vaccine
By Morgan Rimmer and Devan Cole, CNN
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has publicly cast doubt on and spread misinformation about the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines, revealed Tuesday that she has not been inoculated against the virus, answering a question she has dodged for months.
“I haven’t been making it public, but I started making it public because it’s such an issue. I’m not vaccinated,” the Georgia Republican said during a phone town hall.
She continued: “I believe it’s up to every single American to make that choice on their own, and the government has no business to tell Americans that they should take the Covid vaccine or not.”
A conservative Republican who has a history of promoting various conspiracy theories, Greene has pushed misinformation about the vaccines available in the US. In August, she tweeted that the US Food and Drug Administration “should not approve the covid vaccines” and claimed the vaccines were “failing” and that they were ineffective at reducing the virus’s spread.
The falsehoods prompted Twitter to suspend Greene’s account for a week, the latest such action the social media company had taken against her for sharing misinformation. In July, Twitter suspended Greene for 12 hours for sharing misinformation about Covid-19 and vaccines.
Three Covid-19 vaccines are available for use in the US, all of them proving to be effective in slowing the spread of the virus and preventing severe cases of infection and hospitalization. So far, 57.6% of the US population has been fully vaccinated against the virus.
CNN reported in May that Democratic lawmakers in both chambers of Congress had a 100% vaccination rate against Covid-19, significantly outpacing Republicans in the House and Senate at the time and illustrating the partisan divide over the pandemic.
Greene, who has made a name for herself in Washington as a rule-breaker, has violated House rules by refusing to wear her face mask on the House floor, a move that has resulted in her being fined at least $48,000 for 20 offenses.
Greene has appealed at least one of her fines, which come from her salary, but it was upheld.
Democrats implemented the rule last year amid the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. Like Greene, many Republicans have evaded the rules and been fined as a result, and a number of GOP lawmakers have continued to protest the mask rules.
The-CNN-Wire
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