Rev. Jesse Jackson Hospitalized With Covid-19, Was Vaccinated In January – Forbes

The Rev. Jesse Jackson (L) has along with his wife, Jacqueline, tested positive for Covid-19 and ... [+] been admitted to Northwestern Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Yesterday, the Rainbow Push Coalition, which the Reverend Jesse Jackson had founded in 1996, issued a statement about Jackson, 79, and his wife, Jacqueline, 77. Both have tested positive for the Covid-19 coronavirus and apparently have been admitted to Northwestern Hospital in Chicago, Illinois.

Heres a tweet from the Rainbow Push Coalition with that statement:

As you can see, the statement didnt provide a whole lot of information about the Jacksons conditions and why exactly they were hospitalized. Presumably this means that the Jacksons have more than a mild case of Covid-19. Both are at higher risk for more severe Covid-19 since they are over 65 years of age. Plus, the Reverend Jackson does have a chronic medical condition. Back in 2017, the long-time civil rights leader who had run for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 revealed that he had been diagnosed with Parkinsons disease, as I previously covered for Forbes.

On the flip side, Jackson does have a big thing in his favor and it rhymes with Mr. Bean, Dancing Queen, and Charlie Sheen: the Covid-19 vaccine. Jackson has already been vaccinated. In fact, in January, Jackson got a dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine in a televised event, as this Associated Press video showed:

Jackson was hoping that the event would encourage other Black Americans to get vaccinated. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation report revealed that the vaccination rate for Black people is less than 50% in 33 of 42 reporting states, including 6 states where less than a third of Black people have received one or more doses. And across 40 states, the percent of White people who have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose (50%) was roughly 1.3 times higher than the rate for Black people (40%) and 1.1 times higher than the rate for Hispanic people (45%) as of August 16, 2021.

Many on social media have offered their best wishes for the couple. For example, Bernice King, daughter of civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King and CEO of The King Center, tweeted the following:

And here is what Senator Bernie Sanders (D-Vermont) twote:

Ah, but predictably, some on social media, including anonymous accounts, used the occasion to claim that Jacksons being hospitalized for Covid-19 shows that the Covid-19 vaccines dont work. For example, one tweet from an anonymous Twitter account said, Why are the Democrats pushing a racist vaccine onto everyone, even though people of a wide range of races and political leanings have gotten the vaccine so far. Another tweet from a different anonymous account asserted, So if the vaccine helped shorten his illness, why is Jesse Jackson in the hospital? Bunch of lies! Bet Abbott never had it. A tweet reply from yet another anonymous Twitter account claimed, Fully vaccinated Jesse Jackson in the hospital with Covid oncee again PROVING that the vaccines DO NOT WORK. What this tweet did prove that the lack of spell check can oncee lead to some typos.

Any claims that Jacksons case proves that Covid-19 dont work would be wrong, wrong as a sandpaper thong and equally irritating. Would you ever point to a leaking roof and say, see that shows that you should never have a roof or a rip in your pants and claim, this PROVES that pants DO NOT WORK?

Remember, no real medical experts have ever said that the Covid-19 vaccines would be 100% effective. The vaccines are not like full body concrete condoms. While they can significantly reduce your risk of getting severe Covid-19, getting fully vaccinated should not be a license to play Twister with strangers or to start panting on each other. As long as the virus continues to spread widely, it will be important to maintain other Covid-19 precautions, such as social distancing and face mask wearing, even if you are already fully vaccinated. While the pandemic remains a public health emergency, Covid-19 precautions are about layering on different protections, rather than just choosing one and forsaking others. After all, would you ever say before a job interview or a date, since Ive got underwear on, why wear the pants or the shirt, right?

Experts always expected breakthrough infections to occur. A breakthrough infection is an infection in a fully vaccinated person. Even when a breakthrough infection happens, though, immunity offered by the vaccine can still help reduce the severity of the infection. Just because a breakthrough infection happens and its severe enough to land you in the hospital, doesnt mean that the vaccine didnt work. An analogy would be wearing a seat belt during a car accident and exclaiming, darn, shouldnt have worn that seatbelt, or having your pants fall down, ugh, that underwear was useless. Quite the contrary. The underwear was actually on the ball, so to speak.

Hopefully, getting vaccinated will provide the Jacksons (assuming that his wife was vaccinated as well) with enough protection to weather the Covid-19 storm. Vaccination should have exposed Jacksons immune system to the spike protein that normally studs the surface of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), making the virus look like a spiky massage ball. Seeing this spike protein in advance should have better prepared Jacksons immune system for when the real virus came along, sort of like preparing a team for the playoffs by showing them a scouting report or game film of their opponents in advance.

Jackson, whos been known for his fiery civil rights speeches, probably didnt go into his speeches completely unprepared, Similarly, his immune system didnt go into this fight with the Covid-19 coronavirus unprepared either. And that can make a big difference.

Read more:

Rev. Jesse Jackson Hospitalized With Covid-19, Was Vaccinated In January - Forbes