Conservatives Are Self-Combusting Over The News That Big Bird Got The COVID Vaccine

by · Junkee

Conservatives are, once again, self-combusting over a fictional children’s show character — and this time their sooky eyes are set on our beloved Big Bird.

After spending 2021 getting very worked up over Mr. Potato Head’s gender neutral rebrand and queer icon Betty from the Rugrats coming out as a lesbian, conservatives are now very upset that Big Bird has announced he’s vaccinated against COVID-19.

Following the news that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved the use of Pfizer vaccine in children aged from five to 11, CNN collaborated with Sesame Street for a ‘The ABC’s of COVID Vaccines’ to help spread the message about vaccination to kids.

Along with the 30-minute town hall program that helped to answer any questions children had about vaccination with the help of Elmo and Rosita, Big Bird spoke about his “experience” with the jab on Twitter yesterday.

“I got the COVID-19 vaccine today! My wing is feeling a little sore, but it’ll give my body an extra protective boost that keeps me and others healthy,” the fictional eight-foot, forever six-year-old anthropomorphic canary shared.

“[CNN journalist] Ms Erica R Hill even said I’ve been getting vaccines since I was a little bird. I had no idea!”

In a shock to absolutely nobody, conservatives absolutely lost their shit over the news.

Republican senator Ted Cruz — who is vaccinated against COVID — called Big Bird’s vaccination announcement “government propaganda … for your 5-year-old!” while well-known right-wing commentator Tomi Lahren called the kid’s program “repulsive” for “shaming” children into getting an “experimental vaccine”.

“You have got to be freakin kidding me!”tweeted Lahren. “First they steal over a year of development and in-person learning from these kids, then strap face diapers ear to ear and now shaming them into getting a still largely experimental vaccine. Repulsive.”

Fox News contributor Lisa Boothe added that she felt Big Bird getting vaccinated was “twisted” before incorrectly claiming that the campaign was “brainwashing children who are not at risk from COVID”.

Also wildly incorrect was Steve Cortes, a host on conservative news channel Newsmax TV, who claimed that children “are not statistically at risk” and so should not be “pressured” into getting vaccinated by a giant bright yellow bird.

“This kind of propaganda is actually evil,”tweeted Cortes. “Your children are not statistically at risk, and should not be pressured into a brand new treatment. Do Not Comply!”

Other anti-vaxxers turned their attention directly onto Big Bird and tried to assassinate the fictional bird’s character for his involvement in the public health campaign. Calling the anthropomorphic puppet names like a “fucking coward” and a “communist”, some tried to claim that Big Bird had “sold his soul to the Chinese Communist Party” by getting the jab.

Of course, these right-wing pundits are very incorrect about children “not being at risk” of contracting COVID.

According to the FDA, in the US children between the ages of five and 11 account for 39 percent of coronavirus cases in those under 18. Worse still, over 8,000 cases of COVID in this age group have resulted in hospitalisation with 146 of these children dying from the virus.

Conservatives are also wildly misguided about Sesame Street’s ~sudden involvement~ in public health campaigns that they’ve incorrectly labelled as “government propaganda”.

Sesame Street actually has a very long history of sharing public health messages on the program. For example, in the Tanzanian Kilimani Sesame, there’s a continued focus on malaria prevention, and South Africa’s Takalani Sesame has an HIV-positive character to raise awareness for the disease that’s an epidemic in the region.

Beyond this, Big Bird and the kid’s show have advocated for vaccinations in the US before, too.

In 1972, Sesame Street actually ran a similar immunisation campaign for kids that showed Big Bird happily getting vaccinated against the measles — a disease that had a mortality rate of 1:1000 in the 1970s, with children under one being most affected. It was found that the measles vaccine helped reduce cases of the disease by more than 90 percent in children who had the jab.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, conservatives appear to just not care about doing “their own research” when it comes to things that refute their foolish claims. Nor do Republican senators, like Ted Cruz, seem to be very fazed by the fact that a giant, fictional canary is doing more to protect children against dying from COVID-19 than they are.

Big Bird for office, I say.