Photo: Mark Sagliocco/WireImage
Matthew McConaugheydoesn’t support aCOVID-19vaccine mandate for kids just yet.
One week after the Centers for Disease Controlformally authorized Pfizer’s vaccine for usein children ages 5 to 11, McConaughey — who is fully vaccinated — explained that he isn’t anti-vaccine but wants “to find out more information” before supporting any requirements that young children get the shot.
“We just said we can vaccinate kids. I want to trust in the science,” the 52-year-old actor said duringThe New York Times’s DealBook summiton Tuesday.
TheGreenlightsauthor continued, “Do I think that there’s any kind of scam or conspiracy theory? Hell no I don’t. We all got to get off that narrative. There’s not a conspiracy theory on the vaccines.”
McConaughey and his wife Camila share sons Levi, 13, and Livingston, 8, and daughter Vida, 11. On Tuesday, he explained that the couple had chosen to “go slow” with vaccinating their children “even before COVID.”
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McConaughey and Alves are both fully vaccinated. His 90-year-old mother Kay, who lives with the family, is also vaccinated and has received a booster shot, he said. For the time being, he said he won’t be vaccinating his young children: “Right now, I’m not vaccinating [my young children], I’ll tell you that.”
“I didn’t do it because someone told me I had to,” he said of receiving the shot himself. “I chose to do it.”
TheDallas Buyers Clubstar emphasized that he and his family have taken the pandemic seriously and have relied heavily on at-home testing to keep everyone safe — and stressed that his priority is protecting his elderly mother, who is immunocompromised and has been staying with them throughout the pandemic. He told theNYTthat they’ve “quarantined harder than any of our friends have and still are two years later.”
“I’m in a position though where I can do that, and I understand not everyone can do that,” he said.
“I couldn’t mandate having to vaccinate the younger kids. I still want to find out more information,” he said. “There’s gonna come a time, though — and there has already in these last two years, obviously — there’ll come a time where you’re gonna have to roll the dice one way or the other and go, where are the numbers in my favor? I’m vaccinated. Wife’s vaccinated. … We’re over here just trying to live as healthy a lifestyle as possible, but I couldn’t mandate it for kids just yet.”
Last Wednesday, the CDC cleared a smaller dose of Pfizer’s vaccine for 5- to 11-year-olds and inoculations started across the country the next day. In New York City, public schools had lines around the block of parents lined up to get their kids vaccinated and many ran out of doses,according to NBC 4. In Washington, D.C., people waited hours for the vaccine, hoping to protect their kids after months of waiting.
So far,more than 360,000 kidswithin that age group have received their first dose of the vaccine.
But while there is a large portion of parents who immediately went out to get their kids vaccinated,recent pollinghas found that around one-third are hesitant, and another third do not intend to vaccinate their kids. Some parents feel that it isn’t necessary for the young age group to get inoculated given they are less likely to develop a severe illness from COVID-19, but experts have warned that they can still have adverse outcomes, or pass the virus on to others.
Murray adds that “it’s also important to know that MIS-C, the severe post-COVID illness seen in children, is most common in this age group.”
Clinical trials for the vaccine found that there were no adverse side effects in kids aged 5 to 11, and that it was more than 90 percent effective in preventing even mild symptoms of COVID-19.
“I know that this is an incredibly safe vaccine that has saved lives, decreases illness, and once fully vaccinated will allow my kindergartner to have an extra layer of protection to keep her safe in school and when out in the world,” Murray says. “I wouldn’t recommend vaccinating your children if I wasn’t comfortable vaccinating my own.”
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source: people.com
