Even with three free, authorized, and readily available COVID-19 vaccines, only 59% of eligible Americans are fully vaccinated — and as a result, the U.S. is seeing over 100,000 new cases a day for the first time since January. There's really nothing funny about the coronavirus, the millions of lives lost worldwide, or the people who refuse to protect themselves and others from a deadly virus. But according to Chet Hanks, whose mother was famously hospitalized with COVID-19 in the early aughts, it is actually hilarious to reject the vaccine.
In his most embarrassing and upsetting Instagram post since the whole White Boy Summer ordeal, Hanks implored his followers to get the vaccine… before invoking a joke format last used ten years ago. "With the amount of people that I know recently that have gotten COVID and with the numbers rising, I think it's important for me to say I got the vaccine, I think everybody should, I think it's really important that we all do this as citizens," he said on Monday. But then: "PSYCH, b*tch. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I never had COVID. You ain't sticking me with that motherf*cking needle."
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Even though Hanks' parents, Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks, were two of the first and most high-profile people to contract COVID and speak out about their debilitating symptoms, he proceeded to argue that the pandemic isn't a big deal at all. "It's the motherf*cking flu. Get over it, okay?" Hanks continued. "If you're in danger, stay your ass inside."
Obviously, COVID is not comparable to the flu. Although people experience varying symptoms, over 600,000 Americans have died of the virus, and countless more — including Hanks' parents — were hospitalized. "My wife lost her sense of taste and smell. She had severe nausea, she had a much higher fever than I did," Tom told The Guardian last summer. "I just had crippling body aches, I was very fatigued all the time, and I couldn't concentrate on anything for more than about 12 minutes."
Tom and Rita, however, believe in science and pledged to receive the vaccine. "We'll be getting it long after everybody who truly needs to get it gets it," Tom told Today in December. Several months later, Wilson told the same outlet that they would get jabbed as soon as they became eligible.
Hanks' anti-vax rant also came one hour after he slammed Barnes & Noble's mask requirement in an Instagram Story. "I'm so sick of this mask shit, dude," he said. He went on to complain about an employee who told him to adjust his mask twice, and then asked if he was vaccinated.
"I'm like, 'Yeah, for sure I got the vaccine.' PSYCH," said Hanks.
Though it is baffling to the mind, Hanks' new Instagram persona, apparently, is Marjorie Taylor Greene meets Disney Channel bully, which sounds entertaining — but there's nothing funny about downplaying about a deadly virus that's been killing people for a year and a half and starting to mutate. Then again, why are we listening to someone who thought White Boy Summer was a good idea?