As Covid cases rise, some conservatives make surprising course correction on vaccine ahead of 2022 midterms

"It's the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down."

Ivey's deliverance of hard truth followed a week of troubling Covid headlines, when some other Republican governors also redoubled their efforts to get their constituents vaccinated, including Missouri's Mike Parson, West Virginia's Jim Justice and Florida's Ron DeSantis.

2 Republican in the House -- finally got his first Covid-19 vaccine shot after watching cases rise and talked about it publicly.

Even Fox News host Sean Hannity seemed to encourage viewers to get vaccinated on his show this week, underscoring that he believes in the science of vaccination.

The surprising course correction cannot come soon enough, as the highly contagious Delta variant ravages the least vaccinated communities in the country at a time when only 48.9% of the US population is fully vaccinated.

But if those drastic measures became necessary again -- Republican governors would have only had their own constituents to blame for refusing to get vaccinated and allowing the resurgence of the virus.

"It's fairly obvious that that polling must have started to reflect that the American people, (a) believe in the vaccines, and (b) don't understand why the party of Trump -- which developed the vaccine -- is now all of a sudden against vaccines," said Republican strategist Scott Jennings, a CNN contributor.

"I have a feeling that politically -- that was taking its toll."

Jennings added that there is no desire among Republican lawmakers or governors to "go back into lockdown or mask mandate mode, when there is a clear and easy, accessible tool that would prevent us from having to do that."

Arizona Gov.

"This thing is pretty bad." Asked whether there has been any coordination between conservative media and lawmakers, Graham laughed: "Not that I know of." The White House, however, has engaged directly with Fox about their pandemic coverage as they try to persuade viewers who might favor Fox News about the benefits of Covid-19 vaccines.

There has been a wide variation in messaging on vaccines from GOP lawmakers in recent months -- from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has consistently advocated for Americans to get vaccinated, to members of the House Republican Conference -- nearly half of whom still won't say publicly whether they are vaccinated.

That daily average is the lowest since the end of January, when the US had only been vaccinating for about six weeks.

The newfound praise for vaccines among some Republicans could serve as a potential game changer in wearing down vaccine resistance among rural and conservative voters, who have been among the most reluctant to get vaccinated.

We need all Americans who can get the vaccine to get the vaccine," said the North Carolina Republican, who's not running for re-election.