Pooja Bedi, actress and vocal anti-vaxxer, tests positive for COVID-19: I choose to stay unvaccinated

Actor-host Pooja Bedi has tested positive for COVID-19, and says she is taking all the necessary precautions. In an Instagram video on Sunday evening, the 51-year-old actor, who has been a vocal anti-vaxxer, informed that her businessman-fiance Maneck Contractor and their house help have also contracted the virus. “I have finally been diagnosed as COVID positive. I chose/choose to stay unvaccinated as it’s my personal decision to allow my own natural immunity and alternative healing and wellness practices to accelerate my healing. You do what’s right for you. Each to their own. Caution. Not panic,” Bedi wrote. The actor, best known for the 1992 hit Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, said she is optimistic that she will recover soon. “We are now focusing on getting better, stronger. Hopefully, we will be over this in a couple of days. It’s a great way for me to relax, take it easy. I was working on long, hard schedules for months, and maybe this is God’s way of telling me to slow down and take it easy,” she wrote. In August, Bedi had slammed the vaccination drive for all, including people with no comorbidities, calling it “illogical and sinister.” “If 99 percent survive COVID with or without the vaccine, the government needs to focus on isolating, vaccinating, and masking those who have com comorbidities, and are in the risk bracket. Not vaccinate the whole world, and certainly not discriminate against the unvaccinated! It’s illogical and sinister!” she had tweeted. The actor also faced backlash on social media when she posted a video enjoying a speedboat ride in Goa in April amid the deadly second wave of the pandemic in the country. “Joys of living in healthy, happy #goa. Free your mind #NoFear. Life is meant to be lived… not spent caged and masked for a year/ years in fear of a virus that’s clearly not going away! If you died tomorrow after year of masking/lockdown.. what would ur greatest regret be? (sic)” she had written in the caption. According to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Monday, India added 13,596 new coronavirus infections taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,40,81,315, while the active cases declined to 1,89,694, the lowest in 221 days .