Although many MAGA Republicans have been promoting anti-vaxxer claims all over the United States, former President Donald Trump had different messaging during a conversation with former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly this week — saying that he deserves credit for the arrival of COVID-19 vaccines and noting that he had recently received a booster shot. The hosts of Fox News’ morning show “Fox and Friends” discussed that conversation on their Tuesday, December 21 broadcast, and the conversation took a ridiculous turn when one of them, Carly Shimkus, implied that breakthrough COVID-19 infections make it pointless to get vaccinated.

Trump, during his conversation with O’Reilly, said that while he is pro-vaccine, he is anti-mandate.“If you don’t want to take it, you shouldn’t be forced to take it. No mandates,” the former president said. “But take credit because we saved tens of millions of lives.”

Shimkus agreed, saying, “Good for him. Everybody should have the option to make up their own mind about this. About 74, 75 percent of Americans are at least partially vaccinated. That’s a high number.”

After that, Shimkus implied that there’s no point in getting vaccinated because one can be fully vaccinated and get COVID-19 anyway. Shimkus told fellow Fox and Friends co-hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade, “If you look at the reality of the situation, if somebody isn’t vaccinated right now, and they look at their two friends who between the three of them has had six shots against COVID and they still got it because of Omicron, realistically that person isn’t going to get vaccinated.”

But Mediaite’s Colby Hall, in response to Shimkus’ comment, wrote, “What?! Someone who hasn’t yet been vaccinated isn’t going to get it now because it isn’t 100 percent effective in keeping you from getting infected? Uh, there is the whole ending up in the hospital and dying thing, however.”

Hall went on to offer some data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, stressing that while breakthrough infections can occur if one has been vaccinated for COVID-19, the vast majority of those breakthroughs have not been fatal. In other words, a vaccinated person who is infected with COVID-19 isn’t nearly as likely to die from it as an unvaccinated person.

“Breakthrough” is the term that medical experts use to describe people who receive a vaccine to avoid something — be it COVID-19 or the flu — and get infected anyway. Political comedian Bill Maher, who hosts Real Time on HBO, was fully vaccinated for COVID-19 but became a “breakthrough” case when he was infected with it; however, he had only a mild case. And Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has stressed that his COVID-19 infection might have been much more severe had he not been fully vaccinated.

Hall wrote, “So, Shimkus suggesting that there isn’t really a reason why someone who has remained unvaccinated get vaccinated now, isn’t just misinformation, it’s potentially deadly.”

Article reprinted wth permission from Alternet