Former Trump administration Surgeon General Jerome Adams said Monday on CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time” that former Secretary of State Colin Powell died because some Americans were not vaccinated.
Anchor Chris Cuomo said, “In terms of his passing and how he would want it understood, what do you say about the idea that Powell passing while being vaccinated is proof that the vaccination is not necessary?”
Adams said, “It’s absolutely untrue. We’ve got people out there who are in the vaccine-resistant crowd. We’ve got people who have completely different agendas, agendas that have nothing to do with vaccines, and as you mentioned, want to divide us. We’ve got a lot of people out there who are just thrown, who react to misinformation. They need the correct facts. For those of you out there in the moveable middle, I want you to know there have been 7,000 breakthrough deaths since people have been fully vaccinated starting in January of this year. That’s compared to over 300,000 unvaccinated people who died in this country, 7,000 to 300,000. These vaccines work.”
He continued, “Of those breakthroughs, we know about 6000 of them reported have been over the age of 65 as General Powell was. We know a disproportionate number of them have been people with co-morbidities, as General Powell had. So he was someone primed for a breakthrough infection. He’s someone who did what he was supposed to do. He got vaccinated, but it proves we can’t just say we’re only going to protect the vulnerable, we’re only going to worry about those people getting vaccinated, and everyone else doesn’t matter. We all matter. And the fact is that General Powell died because we didn’t take the proper measures to lower spread in this country. We didn’t do everything that we could.”
Adams added, “Please, please hear me, for the sake of General Powell and everyone else out there who is vulnerable and who is doing the right thing, please consider getting your vaccine if you haven’t yet.”
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