Ever since protests began following the police murder of George Floyd, the conservative media has been eager to blame rising cases of COVID-19 on protesters. That has required overlooking a number of issues, primarily an utter disconnect between the primary sites of protests and the areas where the pandemic is now staging a massive comeback. But Fox News and its many friends have never been daunted by facts. However, as NPR reports, protests don’t appear to be associated with clusters of COVID-19. That’s because protesters in most areas wore masks, even during prolonged outdoor events in the heat of the day. Meanwhile other, less political activities—like house parties—were tied to new clusters of cases in Washington state, and reopening with a disregard for guidelines, social distancing, and mask mandates is driving up cases in multiple states.
But there is a political factor that’s increasing both the reach and the deadliness of the pandemic. Because studies are now showing how right-wing media, including Fox News, has deliberately spread confusion, conflicting information, and outright lies about the pandemic. These sources downplayed the risk, spread a false sense of security, and encouraged viewers to disregard their personal safety even as hospitals—and morgues—were filling. The most astounding result: Both infection rates and mortality can be mapped to places where Sean Hannity is most popular.
Hannity has long been Donald Trump’s most reliable purveyor of unreliable information, and on the COVID-19 crisis Hannity has worked overtime. In the early days of the crisis, Hannity could be counted on to declare it was a hoax. When Trump was pushing hydroxychloroquine, Hannity was all over it as a miracle drug. When Trump started pushing to reopen, Hannity got out the crow bars to complain that the economy was more important than grandma. So it’s no surprise that Hannity viewers are the most confused about the nature of the pandemic—and more likely to die as a result.
As The Washington Post reports, the more-ignorant-than-ignorant state of Hannity viewers is just one of the outcomes found in three new studies. Those studies show that:
- People who watch Fox News and other far-right media outlets had little concern about COVID-19 at the beginning of the pandemic.
- They were more likely to believe in rumors about miracle cures, like taking vitamin C or drinking silver.
- They were most likely to believe in conspiracy theories about the origin of the disease, including ideas that the Chinese government created the virus, or that it was connected with 5G communications.
- These viewers continued to downplay the disease even as deaths were mounting, believing instead that deaths were being overcounted and that the CDC, FDA, and others were exaggerating the harm caused by COVID-19 “to damage the Trump presidency.”
The views expressed by Hannity and others on Fox, and radio propagandists like Rush Limbaugh, bounced back and forth with both the White House and Republicans in Congress. When a guest on Hannity’s show said COVID-19 was “just the flu,” Sen. Tom Cotton repeated that claim on Capitol Hill. And while some Republicans, both on air and in Congress, were discussing the disease seriously from the outset, as time went on their positions became “Hannitized” for no one’s protection, treating the disease more and more casually and spreading more misinformation.
Finally, the bad information, lies, rumors, conspiracy theories, and more that came from right-wing sources didn’t just change opinions—it changed actions. From how willing people were to climb on a cruise ship to how long they washed their hands, viewership of specific Fox News programs could be related to how people responded to the pandemic over the whole course of what is unfortunately still the beginning of the pandemic.
As the researchers looking into protests discovered, it’s indoor gatherings where people aren’t wearing masks—like, say, Donald Trump’s rallies in Tulsa and Phoenix—that are primary sources of infection. The second biggest source is the workplace, where people are being forced back into unsafe conditions by too-rapid reopening. But all of these situations are made worse by people who underestimate the disease because of bad information provided by right-wing media.
Sean Hannity has always been bad for America, but it’s never been more clear that his disinformation—and that of other right-wing pundits—comes with a body count.
