Howard Stern says hospitals shouldn’t admit unvaccinated patients. ‘Go home and die’

SiriusXM radio host Howard Stern said that while COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations have spiked throughout January, people who are unvaccinated should not be admitted to hospitals.

“At this point, they have been given plenty of opportunity to get the vaccine,” Stern said Wednesday, Jan. 19, on “The Howard Stern Show,” according to audio uploaded by Medialite.

Stern has often been vocal against people who oppose COVID-19 vaccinations and has been in favor of mandates and protocols that have been implemented across the country. In September, according to Variety, he said of the unvaccinated: “F--- their freedom. I want my freedom to live.”

His recent comments came in response to someone who called in to his show, who asked the popular shock jock his opinion on letting the pandemic “run wild” through people who remain unvaccinated. About 63% of Americans have received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and 39% of them have received a booster dose, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

From Jan. 5 to 11, there was an average of 20,637 Americans being hospitalized with COVID-19 every day, the CDC said. This is the highest average since the beginning of the pandemic. Health experts say the vast majority of hospitalized patients are unvaccinated.

Stern said many people refuse the COVID-19 vaccine because they do not trust the American government.

“They think that there’s some conspiracy to turn them into a magnet or something like this,” Stern said. “They think they are going to become magnetized if they take the vaccine.”

He added that “it’s time” for all eligible Americans to get the vaccine.

“Now if you don’t get it, in my America, all hospitals would be closed to you,” Stern said. “You’re going to go home and die.”

But medical professionals are encouraged to treat patients regardless of vaccination status. The American Medical Association says vaccination status is not an ethical reason to turn away a patient.

A similar point was made by Dr. Matt Wynia with the University of Colorado, who told The Atlantic that medical professionals should not “punish people for their social choices.”

“It’s an understandable response out of frustration and anger, and it is completely contrary to the tenets of medical ethics, which have stood pretty firm since the Second World War,” Wynia said. “We don’t use the medical-care system as a way of meting out justice.”

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