Monday, FNC host Tucker Carlson decried the media effort to promote vaccinations by blaming the continued spread of COVID-19 on those that have not yet gotten vaccinations.
Carlson also responded to comments from former FNC correspondent Carl Cameron criticizing Fox News for its primetime personalities’ willingness to question the vaccinations.
Transcript as follows:
CARLSON: Last week, as you remember, a group of Texas state legislators decided to cast down their nets and follow their consciences. They left their native land on a kind of pilgrimage to find democracy. By leaving ironically, they ended democracy in their own state. In their absence, Texas could no longer pass laws.
But they believed it was worth it. They were serving a cause bigger than themselves, so they set out on the journey of a lifetime with just the clothes on their backs. They took nothing, apart from a private jet, iPhones for selfies, and regular social media updates and a case of Miller Lite for sustenance.
They forewent even their paper obedience masks, the ones that Federal law require the rest of us to wear when we travel by air. But not these pilgrims. They took no masks. They traveled light. They were like the Vietcong marching 50 miles in truck tire sandals and sleeping in trees. They were only about their mission.
Finally, after a grueling refueling stop at an FBO en route, they arrived in Washington as conquering heroes. One of the pilgrims, an enthusiastic, if not especially bright legislator called Gene Wu boasted that fans were all but throwing themselves at him as he arrived at the national airport in D.C. Virtue has its benefits.
The group then even met with the President of the United States, Kamala Harris who compared them to the Civil Rights marchers of old. There were no German shepherds or fire hoses or bridges to cross, but it was a very similar vibe. You could smell the moral heroism.
And then strangely, you couldn’t smell anything at all. A number of the pilgrims reported feeling sick and then losing their olfactory sense. Uh- oh. As it turned out, at least five of the pilgrims had come down with the dreaded coronavirus.
Kamala Harris had clearly been exposed to that and she was whisked away to Walter Reed Medical Center for undisclosed, but easily guessed reasons.
For our friend, Gene Wu, this was all very embarrassing.
Wu had intended to dazzle Kamala Harris, not infect her with a deadly pathogen. Thankfully, Gene Wu has a philosophical streak.
“Let our mistake be the object lesson,” Wu tweeted, “All of us had been fully vaccinated since March. We got complacent because we felt safe. Being vaccinated doesn’t always stop you from spreading the virus. Always mask up indoors.” Gene Wu wrote the last sentence in all caps, like a scientist. Good to know.
But wait a second. This seems like news.
It turns out, according to Gene Wu that being vaccinated doesn’t stop you from getting COVID-19 or from spreading it to other people. Did you know that? Gene Wu didn’t know that. Just a week ago, on July 13th, Wu said exactly the opposite of that. In fact, he explained that the pilgrims didn’t need masks as they traveled because they had all been vaccinated and the vaccine works, dummy. It’s science.
But now, Gene Wu was telling us, it doesn’t work and his friends have the virus to prove it. What’s going on here, Gene Wu?
Unfortunately, Dr. Wu was not able to join us tonight. He is still at the airport meeting his many fans, so instead, we have tape for you from the U.K.’s Chief Scientific Adviser, a man called Sir Patrick Vallance. This tape is from today.
Gene Wu and his friends should have watched it before they left Texas. It makes you wonder, how effective are these drugs anyway? Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SIR PATRICK VALLANCE, CHIEF SCIENTIFIC ADVISER TO THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED KINGDOM: In terms of the number of people in hospital who have been double vaccinated, we know it’s around 60 percent of the people being admitted to hospital with COVID have been double vaccinated, and that’s not surprising because the vaccines are not a hundred percent effective.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: So, fully sixty percent of patients admitted to British hospitals for severe presumably life-threatening cases of COVID because that’s why you go to the hospital had been fully vaccinated. That’s what he just said.
Several hours after he said it, Vallance sent a tweet clarifying that he meant only 40 of patients admitted to U.K. hospitals had been fully vaccinated. He didn’t provide evidence to substantiate anything he said.
But still, either number seems like big news.
Now, the number may be small in total, in the aggregate, but the fact that anybody is going to the hospital, particularly a big percentage of people are going to the hospital who have already been vaccinated is the opposite of what they’ve been telling us here in the United States. They’ve been telling us anyone who is fully vaccinated is fine. The only people getting dangerously sick or dying from COVID are those people who have refused to get the vaccine.
Joe Biden said that once again just the other day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated, and that’s — and they’re killing people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: “They’re killing people.” This show is killing people for asking those naughty questions. We’ve heard that a lot, including from elected officials — a lot of them.
Because the only people getting sick are the ones who have refused for political reasons, to get the vaccines. How many times have you heard that in the past month as they continue to politicize Medicine to an almost irrecoverable point?
Our CDC Director Rochelle Walensky has joined in. She said the same thing. If you’re vaccinated, she has assured us, you’re safe. You’re not simply protected from infection, you’re protected from serious illness, from hospitalization, even from the lurking menace known as the delta variant.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: This is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated. We are seeing outbreaks of cases in parts of the country that have low vaccination coverage because unvaccinated people are at risk and communities that are fully vaccinated are generally faring well.
The good news is that if you’re fully vaccinated, you are protected against severe COVID hospitalization and death, and are even protected against the known variants including the delta variant circulating in this country.
If you are not vaccinated, you remain at risk, and our biggest concern is that we are going to continue to see preventable cases, hospitalizations, and sadly, deaths, among the unvaccinated.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: We’re not saying there is no benefit to the vaccine, there may well be profound benefits to the vaccine. Our mind is open and has been from the first day. We never encouraged anyone to take or not to take the vaccine. Obviously, we’re not doctors.
But we know lying when we see it and you just saw it. To say again, in unison, and they are all saying it: this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated is simply untrue. That’s a lie.
There’s a massive discrepancy between that political talking point, which is exactly what it is — thank you, Rochelle Walensky; thank you, President Biden — and what the data in a bunch of different countries are showing.
Someone needs to explain that. Tell us the truth. People can handle it.
And what is going on with the government’s own VAERS database? The vaccine harm database that you’re required to ignore, but that the Biden administration maintains anyway, but the numbers are bad. What are the real numbers?
Who knows? No one will say.
As of tonight, the VAERS database reports more than a thousand cases of heart inflammation in people 30 and under who have taken the vaccine. Is that a big deal? Is it not? Should we worry about that? How are those people doing? We don’t know.
As of this week, the CDC and the FDA say it confirmed more than 600 reports of heart inflammation and swelling and that number is almost certain to rise. What’s the context for those numbers? Is that a full count? Is it an under count?
Why isn’t anyone trying to find out? And why aren’t they telling us?
How come no one in the Federal government is working transparently to complete a full assessment of all vaccine side effects and then tell the public what they are? Is there some reason people are being compelled to take the vaccine — and millions are being compelled to take the vaccine — shouldn’t know that?
Oh, shut up, say the dummies on TV.
The only people still getting COVID are right-wingers, FOX News viewers who won’t follow instructions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARL CAMERON, FORMER FOX NEWS CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Just last week, new infections went up 70 percent and according to uh the CDC, which over — excuse me — the N.I.H. which oversees the CDC it is, absolutely 99.5 percent of those infections are people who haven’t gotten vaccinated.
I mean, come on. Anybody who disputes that sort of stuff is putting people’s lives at risk and potentially killing them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Anybody who knows too much about someone, it’s hard to take medical advice from that person. But there are a lot of those people giving you medical advice on television and you should ignore them.
The advice they are giving you isn’t designed to help, it is designed to make you comply and you shouldn’t comply mindlessly. You’re an American adult. You are allowed to ask simple questions and then demand clear answers. That’s why we live here. That’s your birthright.
For example, schools across the country are now forcing children to take the vaccine as a condition of their education. So, is that a good idea? Is it rooted in science? We should know the answer to that. Why wouldn’t we know the answer to that? But before we can answer that question, we need to know how many young people are dying from COVID.
OK, let’s go to the CDC website. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a total of 335 Americans under the age of 18 have died from coronavirus in this country. That’s the number.
But what does that number mean exactly? The CDC did not provide any specific information on the circumstances of those deaths, and the circumstances can be all important. So, researchers at Johns Hopkins led by Dr. Marty Makary looked closely at those numbers and what they actually meant and here’s what they found, quote: “A mortality rate of zero among children without a preexisting medical condition such as leukemia.”
Oh, leukemia is a very serious underlying medical condition. So does that mean that no one under 18 without a serious underlying medical condition died from COVID? It seems that way.
So then, is it as a matter of science and public policy necessary to force every child including the millions without preexisting conditions to get vaccines and wear masks all day? What about adults who already have had COVID? There are millions of those.
The Johns Hopkins researchers found the CDC is barely doing anything to answer that question. The CDC’s reports on rates of natural immunity and what that immunity means and whether people who have it should get the vaccine or benefit from in any way or need it, Makary’s team noted that that guidance is quote, “outdated.”
Outdated? Really? A year and a half into this pandemic.
These are relevant and vital questions. They are hardly denial of anything. They are the opposite. They are a search for truth. An open-minded one, a relentless one that will not be shamed into silence. That is what science is, and we should not allow ourselves to be bullied by political forces into ignoring obvious questions.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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