Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell recorded a public service announcement urging the unvaccinated to get with the times.
“As a boy, I fought polio,” the 79-year-old Kentucky Republican said. “Today, America’s been polio-free for 40 years — thanks to vaccinations.”
McConnell was 2 years old when he contracted the infectious disease in 1944. A vaccine was developed a decade later. According to the Washington Post, charitable donations helped finance a long and difficult recovery. McConnell’s father was serving in the military during World War II when the sickness struck.
“We’ll beat COVID-19 with vaccines, too,” McConnell says in his PSA. “Protect yourself and your family. Get vaccinated.”
McConnell reports that 90% of his state’s hospitals are filled with unvaccinated people. He calls that “proof — not opinion, proof — that the vaccines work.”
Encouraging viewers to urge everyone they know to get vaccinated, McConnell drives home the point that inoculations are a silver bullet for the nation’s COVID-19 crisis.
“That’s the only way out of this pandemic, permanently,” he said.
In July, McConnell launched radio ads aimed at getting people in the Bluegrass State inoculated. While the debate about vaccines has largely taken on a political dimension, the long-serving lawmaker isn’t the most high-profile Republican to push Red Staters to get their shots. Former President Donald Trump told followers at a rally in Alabama a little over a week ago that he’s vaccinated and suggested they follow his lead. That advice was meant with resistance from a some in the crowd.
“You gotta do what you have to do,” he said. “But I recommend — take the vaccines.”
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