‘Fox and Friends’ continues to promote the lie that COVID-19 vaccines ‘aren’t working’

MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan has warned that the problem with painting Fox News as “eccentric” is that some of its far-right commentary isn’t just weird, goofy or bizarre — it is flat-out dangerous. And a prime example of “Fox and Friends” hosts pushing false information, according to Media Matters, is the claim that “the vaccines aren’t working.”

Media Matters’ Eric Kleefeld observes that this week on “Fox and Friends,” co-host Ainsley Earhardt “attacked President Joe Biden, claiming, ‘He didn't shut down the virus, and now, we’re learning the vaccines aren't working for this latest variant’…. In the next hour, co-host Brian Kilmeade ridiculed Biden for saying ‘the same thing for a year — get vaccinated, get vaccinated, come on, get vaccinated.’ He also claimed that the country needs ‘a new plan’ of living with the virus — as if such a ‘plan’ would not require everyone to be vaccinated and to take certain other precautions to be remotely workable.”

Kleefeld, debunking Earhardt, notes, “In fact, data shows the vaccines are still effective at preventing hospitalizations and deaths for breakthrough infections from the Omicron variant.”

Biden and Dr. Anthony Fauci, Biden’s top White House medical adviser, have been aggressively promoting COVID-19 vaccines and booster shots — stressing that they offer a lot of protection against COVID-19, especially with the Omicron variant raging all around the world. However, Biden and Fauci have never claimed that the vaccines and booster shots offer an iron-clad 100% guarantee that one will never be infected with COVID-19. What Biden and Fauci have said, correctly so, is that: (1) the vaccinated are less likely to get infected than the unvaccinated, and (2) if the vaccinated become breakthrough cases — people being vaccinated for COVID-19 but getting infected anyway — the infections will likely be less severe.

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At this point, most of the people being hospitalized for COVID-19 and ending up on ventilators are unvaccinated.

But for Earhardt and Kilmeade, “owning the liberals” obviously takes priority over giving their viewers medically accurate information that could save their lives.