At his rally in Alabama on Saturday night, Donald Trump heard the unusual sound of booing and jeering aimed his way, after he told supporters: “I recommend taking the vaccines.”<br /><br />The former president was speaking in Cullman, Alabama, a city struggling to cope with Covid-19 cases and hospitalisations.<br /><br />Like other states home to resistance to vaccinations and other public health measures often stoked by Republican leaders, Alabama is at the mercy of the Delta variant of the coronavirus.<br /><br />“I believe totally in your freedoms,” Trump said. “I do, you’re free, you got to do what you have to do.<br /><br />“But I recommend taking the vaccines. I did it, it’s good, take the vaccines.”<br /><br />Trump was vaccinated while in office, having been hospitalised with Covid-19 last October. He has told supporters they should follow suit.<br /><br />In Alabama, responding to boos and jeers, he said: “That’s OK. That’s all right. That’s good, you got your freedoms.<br /><br />“But I happen to take the vaccine. If it doesn’t work, you’ll be the first to know. OK.”<br /><br />Ahead of the Trump rally, local authorities said they feared a super-spreader event.<br /><br />According to AL.com, Luke Satterfield, an attorney for the city, said: “We want to prevent as many non-Covid related things as possible, so our hospital can use its resources to focus on the pandemic and its variants. We don’t want to put any extra strain on them.”<br /><br />As the Delta variant surges across the US, hospitalisations and deaths from Covid-19 are overwhelmingly among the unvaccinated.<br /><br />In Alabama, the state hospital association said this week that 85% of hospitalized Covid-19 patients were unvaccinated. Alabama is also seeing a surge in Covid cases among children. The state this week had 50 children hospitalised with Covid-19.<br /><br />Dr Karen Landers, a pediatrician with the Alabama health department, told the Associated Press she was “very concerned … children can and do contract and spread Covid-19”.<br /><br />Elsewhere on Saturday the Republican governor of Texas, another state struggling with Covid cases and political turmoil over public health mandates, said he had tested negative for Covid-19 four days after testing positive.<br /><br />“I’m told that my infection was brief and mild because of the vaccination that I received,” Greg Abbot said, in a video posted to Twitter. “So I encourage others who have not yet received the vaccination to consider getting one.”
