Fox News’ Pete Hegseth faced backlash on Thursday after he appeared to call on healthy people to “have some courage” to get “out there” and contract the coronavirus in a bid to achieve “herd immunity,” a strategy that has been condemned by leading epidemiologists.
What We Know:
- Hegseth, appearing on the Outnumbered panel show from what appeared to be his home, said he did not like the way in which President Donald Trump had described Americans as “warriors” amid the pandemic. That term was more suited to describe the “guys and goals that risk their life voluntarily to go to the most dangerous places in the world,” he said.
“The experts have been telling us that hundreds of thousands of people are going to die. Now that we are learning more, herd community is our friend. Healthy people getting out there, they are going to have to have some courage. And we’ve seen courage …in Texas, where people are defying ridiculous orders.”
- Epidemiologists from Johns Hopkins University, however, have previously cautioned against seeking early herd immunity by allowing vast swaths of the population to become infected, describing it as a “dangerous misconception”.
- Hegseth said in March that the more he learned about COVID-19, the disease causing the virus, “the less there is to worry about.” In 2019, he declared on Fox & Friends, that “germs are not a real thing” because he cannot see them and that he has not washed his hands for a decade. He later said he was joking.
- Critics of Hegseth’s latest comments accused him of hypocrisy, given how he and many Fox News’ employees in New York City are currently working remotely. They also called him “irresponsible” for appearing to encourage people to break stay-at-home orders aimed at slowing the spread of the virus.
Recognize: @PeteHegseth is home.
If I was irresponsible, I'd call on Pete to have some courage and go out in public like he is telling Fox News viewers to do. But see, I'm actually glad he's home. Because we all should be.
But, take solace that Pete calling himself a coward. https://t.co/5SA4UBGg5X
— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) May 7, 2020
Pete Hegseth is paid a lot of money by fox to tell people to have the "courage" to break the law and help spread a deadly disease https://t.co/QFJxl3u7UK
— Eliza Relman (@eliza_relman) May 7, 2020
The president continues to advocate for a quick reopening, however data from his own White House reveals that opening up the floodgates now will be a disaster and that just waiting even a couple more weeks could reduce new coronavirus cases by thousands a day.
