Covid incentives will make U.S. look ‘like a nation of sulky adolescents’

May 6, 2021: -On Tuesday, Dr. Peter Hotez said that the optics of having to incentivize the Covid vaccine does not make the U.S. in a positive light in front of the nation.

“When people are clamoring for vaccines in India and Brazil, it just makes us look like a nation of sulky adolescents. So, if it’s necessary, although it’s tough to swallow,” said Hotez, the dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine. 

The vaccination pace has been slipping nationwide. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. is averaging about 2.3 million shots per day, down 32% from the peak last month.

The federal government changes the vaccine allocation strategies in the country between the low vaccination pace. States can let go of the doses that they don’t need, and the doses will be redistributed to areas with high demand.

Hotez, the co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital, told CNBC that the new strategy is risky.

“In terms of sending away unused doses to other states, the risk of that one is, we do create this red state/blue state divide where we stop transmission in some parts of the country, but not others,” said Hotez.

Many surveys have found that Republicans will likely deny getting vaccinated.

Hotez explained to host Shepard Smith that more than half the population has received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine in several Northeastern blue states. As a result, there have been more significant decreases in coronavirus infections over the last two weeks.

However, red states like Alabama, Tennessee, and Wyoming are experiencing much low vaccination rates and high infection rates than their blue-state counterparts, Hotez added.