California Gov. Gavin Newsom and his aides are pushing back on tabloid claims he canceled a recent trip to a climate summit in Scotland because he secretly got sick from his recent COVID-19 booster and annual flu shot.
“That’s made up,” Newsom said on Wednesday during a visit to a COVID-19 vaccination clinic in Los Angeles when asked to comment on an anonymously sourced report in Britain’s The Daily Mail.
The outlet wrote that Newsom allegedly had a reaction to receiving both his COVID-19 booster shot and his flu shot within days of one another and was left feeling fatigued and weak.
“I had absolutely no impact whatsoever from the COVID shot, nor from the original or the booster. Absolutely none,” he told reporters Wednesday. “No fatigue. Even no soreness.”
Newsom stressed that people should “reflect” on “intentional misrepresentation and misinformation around the efficacy and safety of these vaccines.”
His office echoed that.
“Last week Governor Newsom worked in the Capitol with staff on urgent issues including COVID-19 vaccines for kids, boosters, ports, the forthcoming state budget and California’s continued economic recovery,” spokesman Daniel Lopez told PEOPLE in a statement. “He will have public events this week related to the economy and vaccines. Also, the Governor did not experience any adverse effects from his booster shot.”
Despite the online chatter caused by Newsom’s trip cancellation for “family obligations,” his office has played down the extent to which he was not publicly visible in recent days, noting he was still working the whole time and did not, ultimately, cancel anything beyond the climate trip.
Aides also shrugged off anonymous suspicions of a secret illness as silly, noting mild side-effects from vaccines are common and would not have needed to be hidden.