Sarah Palin says ‘over my dead body’ will she have vaccine after contracting Covid

The 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate revealed in March she had tested positive for Covid

Sarah Palin has said “over my dead body” will she allow authorities to force her to get a Covid-19 vaccine.

The Republican firebrand made the remarks at “Americafest”, a three-day event in Phoenix, Arizona organized by Turning Point USA, a youth conservative student movement for “freedom, free markets and limited government”.

Ms Palin took to the stage early on Sunday and began by launching into an attack on the US’s top health official Dr Anthony Fauci who has spoken of his support for vaccine mandates. She did so as figures collated by Johns Hopkins University suggest at least 806,000 people have lost their lives to the disease.

She called the infectious disease expert “the most inconsistent talking head”.

“Do you remember he said that if you had Covid, you would be naturally immune?” she asked.

“So at the time we were led to believe we wouldn’t need to have the shot. Well, then they changed their tune. Those of us who have had Covid, they’re telling us that even though we’ve had it - we have natural immunity - now that we still have to get a shot.”

She added: “And it’ll be over my dead body that I get a shot. I will not. I won’t do it and they better not touch my kids either.”

While Dr Fauci and other experts have previously talked of a degree of natural immunity for those who have had Covid, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends that people get vaccinated to better protect themselves.

Ms Palin revealed in March 2021 that she had tested positive for Covid-19 and urged people to take steps to guard against the coronavirus, such as wearing masks in public.

“Through it all, I view wearing that cumbersome mask indoors in a crowd as not only allowing the newfound luxury of being incognito, but trust it’s better than doing nothing to slow the spread,” she told People magazine.

“I strongly encourage everyone to use common sense to avoid spreading this and every other virus out there.”

Asked about the threat that some people could lose their jobs for not getting a vaccine, she said: “If enough of us rise up and say ‘No, enough is enough’ - there are more of us than there are of them.”