Who Will Be Left to Watch Fox News if the Hosts Continue to Frighten Viewers Out of Getting a COVID Vaccine?
In a mad scramble for ratings, the station hasn’t considered the ramifications of mass deaths among its audience
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Covid is not over. Covid cases in America are surging in 46 states. The lower the vaccination rate in the state, the worse the surge. Missouri, a state with one of the lower vaccination rates in the nation has been hit particularly hard by the Delta variant.
In the backdrop of this, some hosts on Fox News are raging against the very thing that can prevent deaths and hospitalizations. Vaccinations.
The sacrifice of lives for ratings and power
It’s not just Fox News hosts cashing in on America’s fear of the vaccine. The Washington Post raised an issue regarding Republicans and their voters. In an opinion article titled, “GOP anti-vaxxers are sacrificing citizens’ lives for political gain,” the reporter discusses the strange and horrifying fact that the audience at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) was delighted that President Biden had failed to meet vaccination goals for the nation.
Here are the facts, and numbers don’t lie, whether you choose to believe them or not. Almost every Covid death in the United States is happening to unvaccinated people.
According to the CDC, 99.5% of recent deaths due to Covid were among the unvaccinated. The CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said, “nearly every death, especially among adults, due to COVID-19, is, at this point, entirely preventable.”
Fox News hosts continue to spread fear-mongering for the vaccine
According to the New York Times, the man at the head of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch is not only vaccinated, but he beat the Queen of England and the president-elect of the United States at the time to it. And he urged others to follow his lead.
But his hosts on Fox News take a different spin. They are in a frenzied state of despair over vaccinations.
In a recent video clip from Fox News, you can hear Laura Ingraham disparage the government's program to encourage vaccines.
“Our big pharma overlords have decided that we need to get rid of these vaccines before they expire. Well, just like the so-called public health experts, the media, they have zero credibility and maximum culpability here.
“Now remember, most adults have gotten at least one shot, many more already have natural or acquired immunity through prior exposure to COVID. We’re likely already at herd immunity thresholds in most parts of the country. But none of that, none of those facts are going to stop them from promoting the government’s vaccine pressure campaign, especially the ones that will target our children.”
Is this true about most adults already having herd immunity?
No. Not even close. Ingraham says most adults have, “natural or acquired immunity through prior exposure to COVID.” But this simply isn’t true.
We know that herd immunity can occur in two ways. Either when a large portion of the population naturally gets a disease and either dies off or recovers from it, or from vaccinations. America doesn’t have enough of either situation for herd immunity to exist.
The facts are, we don’t have herd immunity against Covid. Neither natural nor vaccinated. We may have reached it if most people had received a vaccination as soon as they became eligible, but they didn’t. So here we are, in America, once again watching Covid cases rise.
It’s probably too late for herd immunity anyway. Epidemiology expert Julie Parsonnet doesn’t think we will reach herd immunity now, due to vaccine hesitancy. This makes getting vaccinated even more critical for personal health.
“Public health departments don’t talk about herd immunity because it’s not helpful for the immediate protection of individuals and the overall response to the pandemic. What’s important is getting as many people vaccinated as you possibly can,” Parsonnet said.
Now let’s see what another top Fox News host is telling his viewers about Covid vaccines.
What does Tucker Carlson say about vaccines?
Tucker Carlson asked this question, “wait a second…if you’ve been vaccinated, why would you worry about why the people around you have been vaccinated if vaccines work? Kind of an obvious question, no one has ever asked it. Someone should.”
I guess he hasn’t heard about herd immunity.
I’m not an epidemiologist, or an infectious disease specialist, or even a medical professional, but I can answer Tucker’s question, without even needing to refer to Google.
When you let a virus run rampant through a population, it mutates. We’ve been lucky so far Covid hasn’t mutated into something our vaccines can’t handle. How long will we continue to dodge this bullet is anyone’s guess.
The CDC says, “Some variations allow the virus to spread more easily or make it resistant to treatments or vaccines. Those variants must be monitored more carefully.”
We are not living alone on an island. We all have to live here together on the same planet. And your actions, like whether you wear a mask or get vaccinated, affect everyone around you.
What about Carlson’s rant on children?
Carlson has also stated that the WHO’s latest findings are the Covid vaccine is not safe for children. This is an insane misinterpretation of the WHO recommendation to prioritize vaccines to more at-risk and older populations.
The WHO has to prioritize who gets a vaccine because in the rest of the world, unlike in America, many countries have limited access. The WHO must make a broad generalization globally, whereas the CDC makes recommendations for the US specifically.
Also, it should be noted, both the CDC and the WHO say kids above the age of 12 are safe to be vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine.
Did Ingraham and Carlson get vaccinated?
There is no information whether Carlson or Ingraham have had Covid vaccinations. If they have, they aren’t talking about it.
We do know, aside from Murdoch, many Fox News personalities have received the vaccine, including the cohosts of Fox & Friends.
Why are the Fox News hosts so agitated about Covid vaccines?
Cable news ratings are down for all of the networks, including Fox. But Fox News topped MSNBC and CNN in June.
Outrage sells. Fox News hosts like Ingraham and Carlson know what their viewers want to hear, even if it means risking lives.
