WASHINGTON — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has filmed a public service announcement to encourage people to get the Covid-19 vaccine, a 30-second video shot and distributed by the National Association of Broadcasters and the Kentucky Broadcasters Association.
The PSA begins with a voice-over, then turns to McConnell speaking directly to camera saying: “As a boy, I fought polio. Today, America’s been polio-free for 40 years — thanks to vaccinations. We’ll beat Covid-19 with vaccines, too. Protect yourself and your family. Get vaccinated.”
The PSA is just another example of McConnell’s push for Americans to get vaccinated. Just last month, he launched radio ads in Kentucky to promote vaccine efforts in the state.
The ad has been made available to stations across the country, but it has aired over 100 times in local TV markets in Kentucky, a spokesman for McConnell tells NBC News. McConnell’s office approached the National Association of Broadcasters about doing the PSA, and he recorded it at the Kentucky Broadcasters Association studios in Louisville.
McConnell has not been shy about pushing people to get the Covid vaccine, saying at an event in Kentucky on Tuesday: “Ninety percent of the hospitals in Kentucky and across the country are full of people who are unvaccinated. Proof — not opinion — proof that the vaccines work.”
“I hope each of you are doing everything you can to influence your friends, your family, your employees, there's a solution to this, it's the vaccination. And that's the only way out of this pandemic, permanently,” he said.
Kentucky has seen a spike is Covid cases, with a 62 percent increase in cases over the past 14 days. The state has 48 percent of its population fully vaccinated and 57 percent having received at least one dose, according to state data.
