Tucker Carlson under fire for calling workplace vaccine requirement ‘medical Jim Crow’

Tucker Carlson has been slammed online for equating workplace vaccine requirements to segregation, calling them “medical Jim Crow”.

The Fox News host on Tuesday lashed out at the country’s coronavirus vaccination push, suggesting that workplaces requiring employees to be vaccinated would be similar to segregation.

“Imagine our confusion today looking out across the country, the very same people who just the other day told us that segregation is immoral are now enforcing segregation,” he said.

“Medical Jim Crow has come to America,” Mr Carlson insisted. “If we still had water fountains, the unvaccinated would have separate ones.”

Racist "Jim Crow" laws were laws put in place in American states from the 1880s into the 1960s to enforce racial segregation of Black people.

Social media critics were quick to hit out at the right-wing host for equating vaccine requirements to the racist laws, with some saying his argument was “false equivalence”.

“Ah yes, because your choice not to get vaccinated is the same as being discriminated against because of the color of your skin.  Great argument,” one person said.

Another said: “Everyone of us should be angry that he is equating segregation based on skin color with defiance of public health measures ... There is zero equivalence. I just can’t with him.”

“‘Jim Crow’ refers to 100+ years of segregation and ‘black codes’ designed to keep black people in indentured servitude and politically powerless,” one user said.

They added: “Sorry Tucker Carlson, but requiring health workers to get vaccinated for a deadly virus is NOT MEDICAL JIM CROW.”

The federal government does not mandate people to require a coronavirus vaccination.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that whether a state or local government or employer “can require or mandate Covid-19 vaccination is a matter of state or other applicable law.”

States currently mandate certain jabs for children regarding vaccine-preventable diseases such as Hepatitis B and Polio.

The CDC assures on its website that all the coronavirus vaccine candidates being offered to US citizens are “safe and effective” and the agency recommends getting a Covid-19 vaccine “as soon as you can.”

Carlson has often been condemned for his anti-vaccination rhetoric and use of his platform to spread misinformation about coronavirus vaccines.

Some critics said that Carlson was pushing the controversial viewpoint for “clout” saying he did not care “in the slightest if his words get anyone hurt.”

Nearly 33.3 million people have been infected with the novel coronavirus disease across the US since the pandemic gripped the country in March, leading to over 595,000 deaths.

Cases across the country have dropped significantly since April. The government’s vaccine rollout began in December 2020.

As of now over 50 per cent of Americans have received one dose of a coronavirus shot, with over 40 per cent being fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.