>> It was a little pinch, but it was okay.
Elmo was really glad to have Daddy and Baby David there with him.
Baby David, where are you?
>> I had a lot of questions about Elmo getting the COVID vaccine.
Was it safe?
Was it the right decision?
I talked to our pediatrician, so I could make the right choice.
>> [LAUGH] >> I learned that Elmo getting vaccinated
is the best way to keep himself, our friends,
neighbors, and everyone else healthy and enjoying the things they love.
Bless Sesame Street.
That's just adorable, right?
Not only now can children under five be vaccinated, but
that it is the best way to keep them safe.
Not only them, but yourself, your families, your communities, the schools,
keep them all safe.
Who would have a problem with this message?
Except Senator Ted Cruz,
who put out this tweet immediately triggered by Elmo and his dad saying,
thanks Sesame Street for saying parents are allowed to have questions.
You then have Elmo aggressively advocate for
vaccinating children under five, but you cite zero evidence for this.
Learn more, visit cruz.senate.gov.
In which he has multiple questions including, we can go to this,
how many healthy children ages five and
under without preexisting medical conditions have died or
been hospitalized from COVID or its variants, right?
So again, we're talking about pre-existing medical conditions because you
always have to slap that on any discussion about COVID-19.
But also, these are questions to which there are answers.
These are questions to which there are actual statistics.
So UNICEF actually reported that of the 17,200
deaths reported in those under 20 years of age,
53% occurred among adolescents aged 10 to19,
and 47% among children ages 0 to 9, right?
Now, so there are stats that show that, yes,
young kids can actually die from COVID-19,
young kids can also spread COVID-19 despite the amount of propaganda
we've been given that said, no, kids aren't They don't transmit everything.
Then why was there an uptick in cases when mask mandates stopped in schools?
Why did that was a weird correlation, right?
How many people know people who got sick from a child and then that person died?
I do, anyone else?
Sound off.
So the other thing, vaccines help prevent kids from getting COVID-19.
But although COVID-19 in children, and
this is according to Johns Hopkins Medicine,
COVID-19 in children is sometimes milder than an adults.
Some kids infected with coronavirus can get severe lung infections,
become very sick, yes, and require hospitalization.
This is especially important to remember in light of variants which can be very
contagious.
The current vaccines are still effective in preventing severe illness from
current variants of the virus.
According to Dr. Sick-Samuels and Messina of Johns Hopkins Medicine.
So yeah, it will prevent them.
It is this the same dose that adults are getting?
No, that's why they took months to roll out.
JR, you're a parent, I know your kid's older than five,
but when he could be vaccinated, how did that help ease your mind a little bit?
>> It was a big deal.
Look, because as you guys you found out I just got over it myself a week ago.
And guess where I got it.
Hate to put them on blast with my kid because that's how these things work.
You live with folks.
If nothing else, this shows the singular thought process of many conservatives.
It's, hey, so if it doesn't directly kill the one person that we're talking about,
then why do we care?
It's like we don't live in a society.
It's like we don't live around each other.
It's like we don't breathe the same air in many cases.
Just ignore all those normal societal factors because Ted Cruz is still stuck
on the same thing because these same things we talked about with
Sesame Street back when the vaccines were first rolled out for
folks that weren't five years old, that it was safe for adults and
people that were immune compromised or maybe had just a particular need to
be in the front of the line because of pre existing conditions.
All that stuff.
When it came out in the Sesame Street, I think it was another character.
It wasn't Elmo the first time, it was Zoe or someone, who was like, look,
I need to get over the fear of a shot because I need to get vaccinated.
My God, Sesame Street, how could you?
Little did they know in 1975,
Sesame Street did the same thing because it's always been the same process.
Nothing is different as far as trying to vaccinate people to avoid the spread of
a very dangerous, in our case, new a virus that was presented to us.
But they have to keep going back the same well of,
look at how Sesame Street is corrupting your children.
They go to the emotional line every time and
say that someone's coming after your kids, your wife or your face.
And then we have to stop them before they do what?
Protect you?
The logic gets cut off right there.
And now Elmo and his dad are public enemy number one for Ted Cruz.
What is Ted Cruz been doing except this?
>> I mean, to be fair, it's been a while since the internet owned
him completely and handed him his ass.
So he was like, I need Obviously he gets off on it, I'm sorry,
but he's like, give it to me.
And also, there's nothing else to talk about other than January
6th commission, right?
So he's not gonna talk about that.
Exactly.
So we're gonna talk about Sesame Street.
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