Second ranking House Republican Steve Scalise gets COVID vaccine on Delta variant concerns. Says it's safe and effective'

“Soon,” U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise replied at the beginning of April when asked when he would be vaccinated against the coronavirus.

He repeated the response in May when he was asked the same question.

But it wasn't until Sunday that Scalise actually received his first Pfizer vaccination at an Ochsner clinic in Jefferson Parish.

Why did the No. 2 Republican in the House wait until now?

“Especially with the delta variant becoming a lot more aggressive and seeing another spike, it was a good time to do it,” he said in an interview. “When you talk to people who run hospitals, in New Orleans or other states, 90% of people in hospital with delta variant have not been vaccinated. That’s another signal the vaccine works.”

Scalise said he waited, in part, because he tested positive for COVID antibodies a while back – he believes he had a mild case of the virus at some point – and thought he had some immunity from that.

The politics of the vaccination was not a factor in his decision to be inoculated, he said.

With the more virulent and transmissible delta strain spreading rapidly, the Louisiana Department of Health reported on Monday that hospitals have the highest number of COVID-19 patients since mid-February, when a deadly winter surge in cases was abating.

[link to www.nola.com (secure)]