Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) says “heartless, arrogant, unelected” bureaucrats with the Center for Disease Control (CDC) are prioritizing healthy Americans for the coronavirus vaccine before elderly Americans who are the most vulnerable population.
In a video message posted online on Monday, Gabbard torched CDC officials for distributing the vaccine to healthy “so-called ‘essential workers'” and politicians while elderly Americans and those with underlying health conditions have yet to receive the vaccine.
This is immoral and bad health policy.
I had planned to get the vaccine but will now stand in solidarity with our seniors by not doing so until THEY can. I urge my colleagues who are under 65 and healthy to join me. (2/2)
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) December 21, 2020
“Heartless, arrogant, unelected CDC bureaucrats have decided that the lives of elderly Americans just don’t count,” Gabbard continued:
Now for months, the CDC has been telling us that the elderly are the most vulnerable but now, they’re recommending that 100 million so-called ‘essential workers’ — which means healthy people working in anything from liquor stores to telephone companies — that they can get the vaccine before our grandparents can, that members of Congress like me, we can get the vaccine before at-risk seniors can … people like my aunt who is imprisoned in her own home because of the danger that if she catches the disease, she could die.
Members of Congress who are under 65-years-old and healthy, Gabbard said, should not accept the vaccine until elderly Americans and those with health problems have access to the vaccine.
“This is immoral and bad health policy. I planned to take the vaccine but will now stand in solidarity with our seniors by not doing so until they can,” Gabbard said. “I urge my colleagues in Congress who are under the age of 65 and healthy to join me.”
A panel of advisors to the CDC has been issuing guidance on who should first be eligible for the vaccine. In phase one, the panel ordered that healthcare workers and elderly Americans living in nursing homes be the first to receive the vaccine.
Most recently, the panel decided that those next in line for the vaccine ought to be so-called “frontline essential workers” and Americans 75-years-old and older. Americans between 65 and 74-years-old, as well as those with underlying health conditions, will not be eligible for the vaccine until sometime in February.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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