Marjorie Taylor Greene's Parents Are Vaccinated, Rep Says She Doesn't 'Judge' Choice

U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, an outspoken critic of the COVID-19 vaccines, said on Thursday she has no problem with people who want to get vaccinated, including her parents.

Greene told Steve Bannon on his War Room podcast that her parents got inoculated. While it's something that Greene has rejected for herself, she told Bannon that people are free to make the choice but that it shouldn't be required of anyone.

"I don't judge anyone for taking it. My own parents took it," Greene said. "A vaccine should be a choice."

Greene has accused President Joe Biden of rushing approval of the Pfizer vaccine for his political advantage, pushed the narrative that unvaccinated people are faring fine against COVID-19 and said that the vaccines are unnecessary.

During Thursday's podcast, Greene likened the vaccines to Zicam, an over-the-counter cold remedy. She said they're both used to treat cold-like symptoms and called the vaccines ineffective at preventing the virus from spreading.

The vaccines aren't as effective at preventing the coronavirus from spreading as experts had hoped, but they still help prevent a person from contracting the virus. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this past October that unvaccinated people are five times more likely to get infected than vaccinated people, and 10 times more likely to contract the virus than people with a third booster dose.

Along with pushing back against mandates, Greene tweeted on Christmas Eve that vaccines are only needed "when there is no treatment for a disease" and that there are "life-saving treatments" for COVID.

Treatments and therapeutics for COVID-19 have come a long way since the start of the pandemic, and America has added monoclonal antibodies to its arsenal, with two new antiviral pills rolling out slowly. But more people died of COVID-19 in the second year of the pandemic than the first. Aside from remdesivir, dexamethasone and high-flow oxygen, doctors have had relatively few treatments for COVID-19 and are often left trying to treat complications from the virus.

Fortunately, therapeutics have largely proved effective against Omicron, the latest variant of concern and the dominant one in the United States. But Greene told Bannon that Omicron is not a "threat to anyone," a sentiment she also expressed in her December 24 Twitter thread.

Omicron has so far caused significantly milder cases of COVID-19 than the previous variants have, and most people have been able to recover at home. However, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned that if significantly more people get sick from Omicron, compared with the Delta variants, there could be the same raw number of hospitalizations.

Although Omicron is likely to predominantly cause mild cases, officials have urged people to get first shots and a booster, as that degree of inoculation is believed to help prevent an infected person from becoming seriously ill.