COVID-19 surge: Unvaccinated frustrate Sebelius, socialist 'lunacy' irritates Colyer [View all]

TOPEKA — Former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius generated political blowback by comparing people rejecting COVID-19 vaccinations to individuals who brazenly threatened the health of others by driving while intoxicated or by fouling air in public spaces with cigarette smoke.

Sebelius, who also was President Barack Obama’s health secretary, said on CNN the U.S. surge of hospitalizations and fatalities linked to the Delta variant’s aggressive attack on the unvaccinated should prompt limitations on where vaccine rejectionists could go in public. It’s not fair, she said, for the unvaccinated to carelessly endanger others.

“You can drink, but you can’t drive drunk because you can injure other people. You can’t smoke inside of a public place where you can give cancer to someone else in spite of their never having been a smoker,” Sebelius said. “Right now, I’m being impinged on by people who say, ‘I don’t want to get vaccinated.’ It’s fine. I want them to maybe have a limitation on where they can go and who they can possibly infect.”

Jeff Colyer, a former Republican governor seeking the 2022 GOP’s nomination for the job, said on Tuesday he was unimpressed with Sebelius’ interpretation of freedom. He equated her words to “lunacy” and suggested her “crazy socialist idea” was the type of leadership exhibited by the Soviet Union.

Read more: https://kansasreflector.com/2021/07/21/covid-19-surge-unvaccinated-frustrate-sebelius-socialist-lunacy-irritates-colyer/