Kristi Noem says she is sending news about COVID vaccine where people are “mocking you”

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem said that she does not plan to increase efforts to encourage people to get COVID-19 vaccinations because she believes her information has reached the “saturation level where people are beginning to alienate you”. Associated Press Report.

Noem was the champion of vaccination earlier this year and praised the state’s initial high vaccination rate. However, the governor has not used her platform to encourage vaccination for months.

Recently, the state’s vaccination rate has dropped significantly because less than half of the population in South Dakota has been vaccinated.

However, as the state’s infection rate has doubled in the past two weeks, the governor admitted that there is a risk of delta mutation.

“We may need to really strengthen our communication so that people understand the difference in variation,” she told Associated Press“If we start to see a sharp increase in cases, you might see more of our communication.”

For more reports from the Associated Press, please see below.

Public health officials believe that the variant is at least twice as infectious as the original version, but these vaccines seem to provide most people with strong protection against serious diseases. Now, almost all deaths from COVID-19 in the United States are people who have not been vaccinated. Despite this, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only 57.1% of Americans have at least one dose of the vaccine.

Noam’s rise as a potential contender for the Republican presidential candidate in 2024 is mainly due to her non-interference attitude towards the pandemic – a difference that may complicate her message to a large number of Republican bases that refuse to be vaccinated. .

Other party leaders and conservative cable news figures, facing a new wave of infections caused by variants of the delta virus, have sounded the alarm in recent weeks and tried to persuade people to accept injections. Republican governors, such as Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, who recently took over as chairman of the National Association of Governors, have prioritized fighting vaccine resistance and have used their positions to advocate for vaccination.

Noam has been opposed to ordering people to wear masks, even though the state witnessed one of the country’s worst virus surges last year and raised doubts about its effectiveness for widespread use in public. when. . .when CDC This week provided new guidance for vaccinated people to re-wear masks in areas with high infection rates. She responded Laugh at Twitter Memes.

She believes that the governor who issued the order to contain the infection is beyond their responsibilities.

“Any other governor who takes stronger mitigation measures, they have violated their oath to the Constitution,” she said. “Every governor who shuts down a business may be prosecuted for taking over the business.”

Her approach has aroused widespread concern and also aroused criticism. In an extensive interview with the Associated Press after visiting the U.S.-Mexico border, Noam discussed how she did not shy away from controversy during her first term, sometimes viewing strong opposition as an advantage.

Before the pandemic, Noam was probably best known for being ridiculed by anti-drug campaigns using the slogan “Meth. We’re On It” across the country. She said she has no regrets about approving these ads, especially after seeing South Dakota become one of the only two states with a reduction in drug-related overdose in 2020.

“Every addiction counselor and even addicts tell me,’I know people are making fun of this sport, but everyone is talking about it. This is the first step in getting people to receive addiction treatment,'” she said. “After that exercise, we allowed more people to receive addiction treatment, which is more than our previous three or four years combined.”

However, she did acknowledge the political risk that came with another unpopular position she took: opposition to recreational marijuana. South Dakota voters approved its legalization last year, but Noam launched a lawsuit to challenge the measure on constitutional grounds.The circuit court overturned the law, but the state has yet to appeal Supreme Court.

“I don’t think I should change my position, but I can communicate it better,” Noam said. “I think the polls will say, let it go. But 10 years from now, there will be real consequences, the actual cost of the family, the actual cost of the government.”

In a dominated state Republicans, Not sure Democratic Party It is very likely to defeat Noam in next year’s midterm elections. Noam has improved her conservatism record and sees the state as a “pilot project” for conservative policies.

She said: “This is a different way of dealing with the same problems that every state faces, unless it is done from a conservative, smaller government mentality.”

However, many of her speeches so far have occurred at conservative rallies and fundraising events outside the state, not in South Dakota, which has sparked criticism. She is more concerned about the 2024 White House campaign than serving as governor. She also severely cracked down on national issues that would surely anger the foundation of the Republican Party.

But Noam denied that she was seeking anything other than the governor of South Dakota, and said: “Anyone who wants to run for president should not become president.”