April 29th 2020

By Walter Einenkel

Daily Kos

With so much attention being paid to the deadly misinformation entertainment acts being put on over at Fox News by Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson has probably felt a bit lonely. On Monday night, Tucker, clearly out of sorts, grabbed what looks like a Christmas ribbon for presents, tied it around his neck like a necktie, and presented his best effort to misinform the public about public health problems. Citing the very questionable conclusions that two Bakersfield doctors in California presented to the press a week ago, Tucker said the push for continued social distancing policies is not based on science.

Carlson went on to explain that officials who pushed for these social distancing policies told us we needed to “flatten the curve,” and now “six weeks later we are happy to say that curve has been flattened.” Great! So, it’s working Tucker? No. While social distancing policies have been somewhat effective at mitigating the spread and intensity of COVID-19, according to Tucker, “it’s likely not because of the lockdown. The virus isn’t nearly as deadly as we thought.” As of the writing of this story, no fewer than 56,843 Americans have died of the virus.

This is Tucker’s jumping off point. From here he attacks politicians “who probably couldn’t pass 10th grade biology,” for enacting orders stopping “nonessential procedures, many of which are essential” in hospitals during social distancing. “What is the scientific justification for doing this? They didn’t tell us because there is none.” This, according to Tucker Carlson, is the real problem because in our privatized healthcare system, this puts economic pressure on hospitals and will “shut them down” more than COVID-19 has done. It’s interesting since its people like Tucker Carlson who are always searching for medical fraud and frivolous procedures that are being paid for through Medicaid and Medicare. 

I don’t think Tucker Carlson could pass kindergarten science at this point. The nature of this virus, regardless of the final analysis on its mortality rate, is clear. Italy and Spain have served as examples of what can happen if your government delays reacting to a COVID-19 outbreak.

Carlson moves on to attack Dr. Anthony Fauci for telling people that “the ancient custom of shaking hands should be done away with forever.” This is beyond the pale, even for Tucker. Carlson goes on to continue to give fact-free public health policy advice while hitting all of the recent right-wing science-free talking points, like the one that states scientists never came up with a SARS virus vaccine. (This is because it didn’t become a pandemic and the research money very quickly dried up—but that’s another issue of public health priorities.)

Tucker finishes by saying that other countries made different “choices” and are opening up their countries. I don’t know—maybe he’s talking about South Korea, where officials enacted mass testing, social distancing, and containment policies weeks and weeks before Donald Trump finally pretended the U.S. government should do something?

What continues to be incredible is that all of us “panicking” lefties were fucking right. It’s right-wing blowhard assholes like Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump who were wrong. Dead wrong. We wouldn’t have to be in a nationwide lockdown if they had just listened to the scientists and infectious disease specialists in their own government, let alone around the world.

Posted with permission