Oscar-winning actor Matthew McConaughey doesn’t support a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for kids just yet.
Nearly a week after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention formally authorised Pfizer’s vaccine for use in children ages 5 to 11, McConaughey, who is fully vaccinated, explained that he isn’t anti-vaccine but wants “to find out more information” before supporting any requirements that young children get the shot. “We just said we can vaccinate kids. I want to trust in the science,” the 52-year-old actor said during The New York Times’s DealBook summit on Tuesday, reported People magazine. The actor continued, “Do I think that there’s any kind of scam or conspiracy theory? Hell no I don’t. We all got to get off that narrative. There’s not a conspiracy theory on the vaccines.”
McConaughey and his wife Camila Alves share sons Levi, and Livingston, and daughter Vida. On Tuesday, he explained that the couple had chosen to “go slow” with vaccinating their children “even before COVID”.
McConaughey and Alves are both fully vaccinated. His 90-year-old mother Kay, who lives with the family, is also vaccinated and has received a booster shot, he said. For the time being, he said he won’t be vaccinating his young children: “Right now, I’m not vaccinating [my young children], I’ll tell you that.”
“I didn’t do it because someone told me I had to,” he said of receiving the shot himself. “I chose to do it.” The ‘Dallas Buyers Club’ star emphasised that he and his family have taken the pandemic seriously and have relied heavily on at-home testing to keep everyone safe — and stressed that his priority is protecting his elderly mother, who is immunocompromised and has been staying with them throughout the pandemic.
He said that they’ve “quarantined harder than any of our friends have and still are two years later.” “I’m in a position though where I can do that, and I understand not everyone can do that,” he said.
“I couldn’t mandate having to vaccinate the younger kids. I still want to find out more information,” he added.
“There’s gonna come a time, though — and there has already in these last two years, obviously — there’ll come a time where you’re gonna have to roll the dice one way or the other and go, where are the numbers in my favour? I’m vaccinated. Wife’s vaccinated. … We’re over here just trying to live as healthy a lifestyle as possible, but I couldn’t mandate it for kids just yet,” the actor further said.
