Mayim Bialik’s COVID diagnosis comes after she again declared she’s not anti-vax

In announcing this week that she has tested positive for COVID-19, “Jeopardy!” host Mayim Bialik seemed to expect that past controversies over her statements about vaccines were likely to come up.

“Hey everybody, not sure if this is clickbait or not but I have a COVID,” the former “Big Bang Theory” star, 46, said in a video posted to her Instagram account Monday. She emphasized that she has been vaccinated and received booster shots, with the caption for her video including the hashtags “#vaxxed,” “#boosted.”

Bialik’s diagnosis comes two months after she again clarified her position in favor of vaccines in an interview with the Daily Beast. “I never said to not get vaccinated,” said Bialik, who also is a neuroscientist. “I absolutely believe vaccines work and have always said that.”

In Instagram Live videos, Bialik said that having COVID is “no joke.”  She also addressed those who have questioned the value of COVID vaccines, saying: “I do have COVID as a person who is vaccinated and boosted. No one said you wouldn’t get COVID if you’re vaccinated and boosted.”

Bialik said having COVID is “very exhausting” in a “very special way.” She mentioned that her older son also has symptoms and said she hoped her illness “passes quickly,” so she can soon return to co-hosting “Jeopardy!” alongside Ken Jennings on a rotating basis.

For the most part, Bialik kept an upbeat tone her in videos, though she admitted to feeling anxious about leaving her house and general sadness about the state of the world. But she didn’t dwell on the efficacy of vaccines or on her one-time reputation as someone who opposes vaccines. This reputation developed over the years, starting with  statements she to made to People in 2009, when she said her family was “a non-vaccinating family.

Bialik explained why “we made an informed decision not to vaccinate our children” in her 2012 parenting book, “Beyond the Sling.” She wrote, “This is a very personal decision that should be made only after sufficient research, which today is within reach of every parent who seeks to learn about their child’s health regardless of their medical knowledge or educational status.”

But three years later, Bialik tried to shed the anti-vax label by tweeting: “i’m not anti. my kids are vaccinated. so much anger and hysteria. i hope this clears things up.”

In 2020, Bialik released a YouTube Video, titled “Am I an anti-vaxxer?” She announced she going to do something she hadn’t done in 30 years: Get a vaccine, specifically, vaccines for the coronavirus and flu.

“Now you might be saying, ‘Hey wait a second, Dr. Mayim Bialik, you don’t believe in vaccines. You’re one of those anti-vaxxers! I know it because I read it online,’ ” Bialik said in a jovial tone. “Well folks, let’s finally talk about it.”

In her most in-depth self-defense to date, Bialik said, “I have never once said that vaccines are not valuable, not useful or not necessary — because they are.” She said her children had receive some vaccinations, which she delayed for reasons she doesn’t want to share publicly.

Then in 2021, as Bialik was looking to succeed the late Alex Trebek as “Jeopardy!” host, she again sought to let people know she wasn’t anti-vaccine, especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Vanity Fair. A representative for Bialik issued a statement in August 2021 saying, “She has been fully vaccinated for the COVID-19 virus and is not at all an anti-vaxxer.”

But Bialik apparently still had some more explaining to do. In her interview with the Daily Beast in April, she was pressed on the the question of whether the COVID-19 pandemic made her rethink her earlier vaccine skepticism.

“At the time that I wrote the book about my kids when they were little, it’s true —they were not vaccinated at that time,” Bialik said. “But no, my kids were vaccinated before the pandemic and I’m typically someone who takes a flu shot when I have to work with lots of people, but many people don’t, so I decided to make a YouTube video about it. And still, there are people who claim that I am not vaccinated. So just go to YouTube. I made a whole video about our decision why we all rolled up our sleeves.’

Bialik also told the Daily Beast that the controversy over her decision to delay vaccines for her children was a bit “manufactured.” She said, “I’m not saying I don’t deserve that attention, because the fact is, if you do speak up about anything — you know, people had a lot of problems with me breastfeeding my child after six months.”