It’s obvious that Dr. Rob Davidson cares a great deal about his patients. Their favorite talking heads like Tucker Carlson, are the objects of Dr. Davidson’s contempt.
Right-wing Covid-19 denialism hit my community hard during the first surge. Now, we’re seeing a new, dangerous anti-vaccine push from these same sources.
By Dr. Rob Davidson, emergency room physician
In many parts of the country, summer looks relatively normal and safe, thanks to wide acceptance of the Covid-19 vaccine. But that’s not the case for areas that have low vaccination coverage. In those areas, cases are rising again. And as an emergency physician still battling Covid-19 in Michigan, I’m often frustrated by the way the news sources my community watches add fuel to these surges.
The high cost of right-wing Covid-19 denialism hit my community hard during the first surge of this crisis. Now, we’re seeing a new, dangerous anti-vaccine push from these media sources, even as the delta variant threatens communities with low vaccination rates.
Yet our regional vaccination rate is discouraging, with only half of the population fully vaccinated. One predictor of vaccine refusal is Fox News viewership, which is heavily Republican and conservative. Indeed, Fox News is lurching increasingly to the right to win back the Trump voters it has lost to upstart right-wing outlets like Newsmax and One America News Network. Fox hosts’ current line on Covid-19 and vaccines includes wrongly equating vaccine outreach efforts with forced vaccinations and accusing community campaigns — also wrongly — of harvesting private medical information.
FOX is desperate to be just as irresponsible as OAN and Newscrapx are.
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What’s truly tragic is that the disinformation my patients and their families hear from their favorite commentators and pundits is dangerously, life-threateningly wrong. They should listen to their family doctors for medical advice, not Sean Hannity — whom researchers have connected to higher infection rates — or Tucker Carlson, who suggested with zero evidence that Covid-19 vaccines don’t work.
UPDATE:
It looks like Dr. Davidson’s editorial struck a nerve at FOX:
BY JOSEPH CHOI
Fellow Fox New hosts Steve Doocy and Bill Hemmer also made statements in support of vaccinations on Monday.
The New York Times published a piece last week going over the statements primetime hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham have said that have been "at odds with the recommendations of health experts" in regards to vaccines.
My post from one month ago: