Waleed Aly defends Guy Sebastian on The Project
Waleed Aly has come out in defence of Guy Sebastian, after the singer received backlash for an apology video about encouraging everyone to get vaccinated.
In a segment on Tuesday night’s episode of The Project, guest Dr Vyom Sharma said Sebastian’s comments showed a “lack of understanding” about the issue.
The 39-year-old singer said he would “never, ever tell people what to do when it comes to their personal health choices” in his apology video, prompted by a post his team shared on social media urging Australians to get vaccinated.
The criticisms kept pouring in after Sebastian called into Ray Hadley’s 2GB program that ended on a sour note.
Aly said that he “really, really feels for Guy” as he faces the severe backlash.
“He seems to me a lovely guy who is being beset upon by people who are not that, and waded into an issue where I don’t think he quite understood the polarisation it faces,” he said.
Image: Channel 10
Co-host Carrie Bickmore also shared her sympathy for The Voice judge, saying, “The pile on … The whole thing gets so ugly.”
But, Dr Sharma said Sebastian’s position towards making people get vaccinated who can’t for medical reasons showed a “lack of understanding”.
“He talked about the fact that he doesn’t want to tell people what they want to do if they have some medical conditions that may prohibit them from getting the vaccine,” Dr Sharma said.
Image: Channel 10
“I can see his good intentions here, but unfortunately this shows a lack of understanding. If anything, if you’ve got lots of medical conditions, that should encourage you more than anyone to go get vaccinated.
“You are exactly the person who is at risk from COVID-19, exactly the person we want to vaccinate first.”
Dr Shama also clarified that the group of people who Sebastian is worried about is actually quite small.
“We are talking about rare conditions that you barely ever see,” he explained.
“It’s not the case that there are thousands of people out there who can’t get vaccinated - it’s just a few.”
Image: Channel 10, Guy Sebastian / Instagram