Hanks shared a video on Instagram in which he initially pretended to encourage followers to get vaccinated. He then screamed “Sike!” and shouted: “You ain’t sticking me with that m*therf**king needle,” before erroneously comparing Covid-19 to the flu.
The musician’s parents were among the first well-known people to contract the virus last March and isolated in an Australian hospital with severe symptoms.
The Covid-19 vaccines approved in the United States have been found to be safe and highly effective, and real-world data from around the world shows that the shots are reducing transmission and drastically lowering the chances of hospitalization and death.
Chet Hanks told followers he won’t be getting a shot because he “never had Covid,” and said those who suffer from the disease should “get over it … Why we working around y’all?”
He also turned on mask-wearing in his evidence-free rant, saying he was “tired” of wearing a face covering. Last year, his father told reporters that wearing a mask is “so simple, so easy, if anybody cannot find it in themselves to practice those three very basic things — I just think shame on you.”
“My Lord, it’s common sense,” Tom Hanks added of mask-wearing and other health precautions like hand-washing and social distancing.
Tom Hanks and Wilson caught Covid-19 just as the disease was beginning to spread around the world and days before Europe and the United States imposed their first lockdowns.