The mainstream media has resorted to shaming and insulting unvaccinated Americans as the ongoing COVID pandemic surges, but medical professionals don’t think the "substandard" tactic is appropriate unless the ultimate goal is to further divide the nation. 

A Washington Post columnist on Tuesday praised French President Emmanuel Macron for a series of discouraging remarks he made about the unvaccinated, urging readers globally to make life a "living hell" for those who choose to forego the vaccine. The opinion column titled "Macron is right: It’s time to make life a living hell for anti-vaxxers," was the latest example of liberal journalists and news organizations calling for Americans who declined the COVID vaccine to be treated poorly. 

Vanderbilt University professor of critical care Dr. Wes Ely, who studies COVID as part of the team at the CIBS Center, believes in the COVID vaccine but doesn’t think media members who sincerely want to move past the pandemic should mock people who haven’t yet received the jab.