As Thanksgiving Day ended and the holiday weekend began, there was alarming news: a new, possibly more virulent strain of COVID had been discovered. It’s called Omicron and it was first detected in South Africa, with possible cases already popping up in the U.K. and parts of Europe. Research still needs to be conducted about, among other issues, whether COVID vaccines can safeguard against it. Meanwhile, Fox News sprang into action — which is to say their hosts are already recklessly spreading misinformation that will make things even worse.
The day after Fox & Friends hosts suggested that Joe Biden is making up new strains to stop from doing his job (or something), South Carolina representative Nancy Mace went on the network to say something even more dangerous: maybe catching a deadly and highly transmissible disease is better than getting a safe, effective, and free vaccine.
Nancy Mace is on Fox News suggesting that people should get Covid rather than get vaccinated because natural immunity is preferable.
Take a second to ponder how irresponsible that is. pic.twitter.com/W1AfDZQEb1
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 28, 2021
“One of the things the CDC has not done and no policy-maker at the federal level has done so far has taken into account what natural immunity does,” Mace said. She then spoke vaguely about medical intel she’s encountered. “In some studies I have read, natural immunity gives you 27 times more protection against future COVID infection than a vaccination.” She concluded that we “need to take all the science into account and not selectively choosing what science to follow when we are making policy decisions.
Mace also pointed to pointed to Florida, which has seen high numbers of cases and deaths, as some kind of model. Governor Ron De Santis has long played tough guy with mask and vaccine mandates, and while cases have dropped in the last month, the state has seen over 3 ½ million cases and over 60,000 deaths — some of the highest in the nation, falling behind only California and Texas, the latter of which has also badmouthed safety measures as disaster mounted.
Mace did not divulge where she saw the data that getting natural immunity — which one can only acquire by catching COVID and then, hopefully, surviving — was better than getting vaxxed. But no serious medical practitioner, much less the CDC, advises this. Quite the opposite.
Meanwhile, Fox News top brass continues to require all on-site employees either get vaccinated or get a negative test, even as hosts and contributors, like Mace, continue to endanger their viewers’ lives.