CBS News host Gayle King said this week that she will not allow family members who have not taken a COVID-19 jab to join her Thanksgiving celebration.
The story: The “CBS This Morning” co-host revealed her stance on vaccination during an interview with Dr.Anthony Fauci, the White House’s chief medical advisor, on Monday.
King highlighted the importance of getting vaccinated against COVID-19 and told viewers that some of her family members have doubts about the vaccines. She then said that family members who are not vaccinated will not be welcomed at her Thanksgiving celebration.
Her comments: “Dr. Fauci, I don’t know how many more times you can say to people: ‘Listen, it will save your life.’ I have this problem with some members of my own family, which I’m now going to ban for Thanksgiving vacation,” King told Fauci.
“That’s how strongly I’m taking what you’re saying,” she added.
What Fauci said: King made the comments after Fauci raised concerns about the percentage of unvaccinated people in the U.S. in light of the emergence of the new Delta variant.
“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,” the NIAID director told King.
“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,” he added.
Not a first: King has been outspoken about vaccination. Earlier this year, she called the COVID-19 vaccine “a superpower.”
In May, she told late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert that she felt “so afraid” because of the pandemic.
“I was so afraid to leave the house,” she said at the time.“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].”
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