TV personality blames ‘anti-vaxxers’ for COVID bout

Piers Morgan Uncensored host Piers Morgan last week blamed “anti-vaxxers” after he contracted a “rough” COVID-19 infection, despite being vaccinated and boosted.

“UPDATE: I’ve tested positive for Covid, and feel as rough as a badger’s a*se, but in the spirit of ‘The Show Must Go On’, I’m going to have a go at anchoring tonight’s @PiersUncensored⁩ live from my home. Tune in at 8pm, because anything could happen….” Morgan wrote on X.

X users pointed out the vaccine’s poor efficacy and challenged the talk show host for his extreme support for vaccines during the pandemic when he advocated for the unvaccinated to be denied health care.

Some users asked Morgan why those who are vaccinated seem to contract COVID-19 at higher rates, to which Morgan replied that the unvaccinated are “incredibly stupid.”

“I heard — from someone on the internet — it’s because Covid doesn’t infect incredibly stupid people due to the lack of available brain cells to infiltrate,” he wrote.

Then, in response to a comment from influencer Andrew Tate, Morgan blamed “anti-vaxx imbeciles” for his decision not to get the latest booster shot, which he believed would protect him from COVID-19.

“Thanks for your concern, Andrew. Ironically, if I’d had another covid booster I wouldn’t have caught the damn thing again and wouldn’t be feeling so rough. That’ll teach me for listening to ill-informed anti-vaxx imbeciles on the internet… !”

The remarks came over a year after the former CNN host tried to walk back his hostile vitriol toward anyone who refused the shots. 

“I’ve got no problem with those refusing to have the covid vaccines, so long as they have no problem with history recording them as selfish pr*cks who only cared about themselves in a global pandemic,” wrote Morgan in July 2021. 

That same month, Morgan pushed for those who refused the shots to be denied health care. 

“Those who refuse to be vaccinated, with no medical reason not to, should be refused NHS care if they then catch covid. I’m hearing of anti-vaxxers using up ICU beds in London at vast expense to the taxpayer. Let them pay for their own stupidity & selfishness.” 

Morgan had previously suggested that those who declined the injections should be “thrown in a cave” and denied work. 

During an October 2022 interview on Piers Morgan Uncensored with celebrity physicist Neil Degrasse Tyson, Morgan said he “took quite firm views.”

“It seemed to me, Neil, when this was all happening – the pandemic – I took quite firm views throughout it, like a lot of people, I guess – one of which was when it was believed when the vaccines when the vaccines first came along that they would stop transmission, it seemed to me if you refused to be vaccinated, you shouldn’t be entitled to the same rights to go to nightclubs and stuff as those who’d taken the vaccine and were therefore not able to transmit it.” 

Morgan falsely claimed he changed his mind on the vaccine once it was determined that it did not stop transmission. 

“However, when it was established that vaccines didn’t actually stop transmission, they just stopped all the people getting very sick and dying, the argument to then suppress any liberties or freedoms of the unvaccinated, to me, it went away. Because in that instance, if the ability to pass it on is pretty well the same if you’ve been jabbed or not, then really it’s down to the individual if they want to protect themselves from this virus. So I changed my mind,” Morgan claimed. 

However, over a year earlier by July 2021, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had already publicly admitted the vaccines did not prevent transmission. That didn’t stop Morgan from attacking anyone who refused the injections. 

“Imagine being scared of having a safe, well-regulated, 4-second vaccine shot, when previous generations braved gun shots for years on end to save us all from tyranny? Anti-vaxxers really are a bunch of spineless pussies,” tweeted Morgan in November 2021. 

In September 2021, Morgan publicly blasted superstar rapper Nicki Minaj for questioning the vaccine and suggesting that getting injected should be a personal choice, saying “She’s peddling lies that will cost lives.” 

In December 2021, the former Good Morning Britain presenter told his nearly 8 million followers that former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was “unfathomably dumb” for refusing to get the experimental injections. He also attacked Trump supporters as “anti-vaxxers” and “vaccine sceptics.”

In January 2022, Morgan supported Australia’s decision to bar world champion tennis player Novak Djokovic from entering the country to play in the Australian Open due to his injection status. 

On his show months later with Tyson, Morgan laughed as he tried to play the victim. 

“I got pilloried when I said my original statement, I got pilloried when I changed my mind. I got pilloried by everyone during the pandemic about all of it,” he said laughing as Tyson joined in. “And yet to me it seemed perfectly logical, honestly, to just change my mind because facts change."

But despite his “change of mind,” Morgan’s continued rhetoric against those who refused the shots confirms researchers’ findings that the unvaccinated are the most hated group in the world, and have been even before the COVID-19 pandemic.

A study last year from Denmark’s Aarhus University sought to determine the level of prejudice against people who did not get the COVID-19 shot. This was measured by asking participants how they would feel about someone not vaccinated against COVID-19 marrying a member of their family.

Among 10,740 respondents across 21 countries, people who are vaccinated would not want an unvaccinated person marrying a close relative, which the study classifies as “antipathy.” In fact, respondents had 2.5 times more antipathy towards the unvaccinated than towards Middle Eastern migrants, “a group battling high levels of discrimination globally.”  

Notably, the unvaccinated were not found to have antipathy towards the vaccinated. 

“[W]e find that discriminatory attitudes towards the unvaccinated is as high or higher than discriminatory attitudes directed towards other common and diverse targets of prejudice including immigrants, drug-addicts and ex-convicts,” concluded the researchers. “At the same time, the results demonstrate that prejudice is mostly one-sided.”  

Along with antipathy, respondents supported stripping the unvaccinated of their political rights and subjecting them to familial exclusion.

According to criminal justice and social policy expert Dr. Josh Guetzkow, this is nothing new. In fact, this mindset has been around for decades.  

“The fact is that ‘anti-vaxxers’ are one of the only groups that people are now allowed, even encouraged, to hate openly,” wrote Guetzkow in a Substack article. “This was true before COVID and has only worsened in the last year, as politicians, gov't officials and journalists ramped up incitement against ‘anti-vaxxers’.”  

“Perhaps the most amazing thing about these statements is that people felt that it was OK to express these opinions ‘out loud’ in public on-line settings and were often encouraged and congratulated by others,” continued Guetzkow. “This is in contrast to other forms of prejudice that people have become more reluctant to express openly as such views are seen as illegitimate or not acceptable in polite society. But here they felt no shame.”