Exasperated West Virginia governor takes aim at 'crazy' anti-vaccine ideas

West Virgnia's Gov. Jim Justice (R) seems to be losing patience with COVID-19 vaccine conspiracy theorists.

During a televised address on Wednesday, he rebuked them in exasperated fashion, asking "why in the world do we have to come up with these crazy ideas? And they're crazy ideas." He singled out one well-known, but baseless theory that the vaccines contain microchips which allow the government to track people who receive the shots. "The same very people that are saying that are carrying their cell phones around," he noted. "I mean, come on."

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.