Republican Alabama Governor Kay Ivey put the blame for the spike in new coronavirus cases in her state squarely on the people impacted by it: the unvaccinated.
“Folks are supposed to have common sense. But it’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks. It’s the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down,” Ivey told reporters in Birmingham, CNN reports.
Ivey’s statement marks another Republican who seems to have taken a 180-degree turn in addressing the coronavirus, as many GOP politicians and conservative media personalities have reversed their previous talking points to encourage their audiences to get vaccinated.
The problem is magnified in Alabama, the state with the lowest vaccination rate in the United States and where the seven-day average of new cases has doubled in the last week. Just 33.9% of Alabamians are fully vaccinated, compared to 56% of the overall US population over the age of 12.
“The new cases of COVID are because of unvaccinated folks. Almost 100% of the new hospitalizations are with unvaccinated folks. And the deaths are certainly occurring with unvaccinated folks. [The unvaccinated are] choosing a horrible lifestyle of self-inflicted pain. We’ve got to get folks to take the shot,” Ivey said, calling the vaccine “the greatest weapon we have to fight COVID.”