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The “King of All Media” doesn’t have much compassion for fellow radio personalities who died after speaking out against COVID-19 vaccines.
Four conservative radio hosts who had been vocal against getting vaccinated —including Marc Bernier, Phil Valentine, Jimmy DeYoung and Dick Farrel — succumbed to COVID-19 over the summer. Howard Stern has little sympathy.
“Four of them were, like, ranting on the air: They will not get vaccinated,” he said on his SiriusXM radio show on Tuesday. “They were on fire, these guys. It was like, day after day … and then their dying words are, ‘I wish I had been more into the vaccine. I wish I had taken it.’”
The shock jock also called out the Americans still hesitant to get a COVID-19 vaccine, and demanded that the vaccines become mandatory. Be warned that his comments are riddled with four-letter words.
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“F— them. F— their freedom. I want my freedom to live. I want to get out of the house. I want to go next door and play chess. I want to go take some pictures. This is bull—.”
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And Stern, 67, countered the argument that getting vaccinated is a matter of personal freedom. He noted that certain vaccines have long been required to go to public schools and colleges, or to enroll in the military.
“When are we going to stop putting up with the idiots in this country and just say it’s mandatory to get vaccinated?” said Stern. “As I remember, when I went to school, you had to get a measles vaccine. You had to get a mumps vaccine.”
His on-air remarks came the same week that the number of COVID-19 cases confirmed in the U.S. topped 40 million, and as the number of children and teens with the novel coronavirus that causes COVID passed 250,000 for the first time since the start of the pandemic last year.
The U.S. is averaging more than 152,000 new cases a day, largely driven by the more contagious delta variant of the virus, which is spreading through the unvaccinated population. Just over half (53%) of the overall U.S. population is vaccinated, according the CDC. Federal data shows that three-quarters of intensive care unit (ICU) beds across the country are full, with 28% of those beds taken by COVID-19 patients.
Stern addressed the overwhelmed hospitals, as well. “The other thing I hate is that all these people with COVID who won’t get vaccinated are in the hospitals clogging it up,” he continued. “So like, if you have a heart attack or any kind of problem, you can’t even get into the E.R. And I’m really of mind to say, ‘Look, if you didn’t get vaccinated [and] you got COVID, you don’t get into a hospital.’”
“You had the cure and you wouldn’t take it,” he added.
His remarks led his name to trend on Twitter early on Thursday morning with more than 8,000 tweets. “Imagine behaving so badly that Howard Stern thinks you are an imbecile!” mused one listener on Twitter.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden is expected to share a new, six-pronged strategy to fight the delta variant of the coronavirus on Thursday.
