As the country slowly but steadily begins rolling out the COVID-19 vaccine for children between the ages of 5 to 11, Matthew McConaughey doesn’t believe the CDC should put mandates in place to make kids get vaccinated.
During The New York Times’s DealBook summit, the actor said that “right now” he doesn’t plan on vaccinating his kids until there’s more information about how it could affect them.
“I couldn’t mandate having to vaccinate the younger kids,” McConaughey said. He added that he doesn’t believe the vaccine is necessarily fake or dangerous, he just wants to see if it’s completely safe.
“Do I think there’s any kind of scam or conspiracy theory? Hell, no, I don’t,” he said, adding, “There will come a time where you’re going to have to roll the dice one way or the other and go: ‘Where are the numbers in my favor?’
Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy begged to differ, responding to the actor’s comments, telling CNN on Tuesday that COVID-19 still poses a high risk to children’s health, and that’s why getting them vaccinated is of paramount importance.
“COVID is not harmless in our children,” he said. “Many kids have died, sadly. Hundreds of children, thousands, have been hospitalized.”
He added that the vaccines “are more at 90 percent effective in protecting our kids from symptomatic infection, and they are remarkably safe as well.”
“There’s a lot of noise out there, but talk to your doctor,” Murthy continued. “Consult credible health sources. And recognize that this is our opportunity to protect our kids and to get them back to so many things that they have missed out on.”
