Interview on 'The View' goes completely off the rails when ex-host pushes false vaccine claims

Jedediah Bila, a former co-host of ABC's "The View" who is also known for her right-wing commentary on Fox News, has been vigorously defending her decision not to get vaccinated for COVID-19. And she continued to do that when she returned to "The View" for a guest appearance this week. But the 42-year-old Bila encountered major pushback from "View" co-hosts Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin when she promoted false information about COVID-19 vaccines.

"I do oppose mandates," Bila told Behar, Hostin and co-host Whoopi Goldberg. "This is a vaccine that was created to prevent severity of disease and to prevent hospitalizations…. But the vaccine does not prevent you from getting COVID and does not prevent you from transmitting COVID."

This is untrue. The vaccines were developed to create immunity to the virus that causes COVID-19, which is expected to reduce infection, transmission, sickness, hospitalization, and death from the disease. And despite Bila's claims, the CDC has found and said that the vaccines reduce infection and transmission, though they are most effective at preventing hospitalization and death. For example, the CDC has said:

• "COVID-19 vaccines can reduce the risk of people spreading the virus that causes COVID-19. Getting everyone ages 5 years and older vaccinated can help the entire family, including siblings who are not eligible for vaccination and family members who may be at risk of getting very sick if they are infected."
• "Early data suggest infections in fully vaccinated persons are more commonly observed with the Delta variant than with other SARS-CoV-2 variants. However, data show fully vaccinated persons are less likely than unvaccinated persons to acquire SARS-CoV-2, and infections with the Delta variant in fully vaccinated persons are associated with less severe clinical outcomes. Infections with the Delta variant in vaccinated persons potentially have reduced transmissibility than infections in unvaccinated persons, although additional studies are needed."
• "Fully vaccinated people with breakthrough infections from this variant appear to be infectious for a shorter period."
• "About the Delta Variant: Vaccines continue to reduce a person's risk of contracting the virus that cause COVID-19, including this variant."

Behar forcefully pushed back against Bila's false claims, saying, "Oh, my goodness! No, that's not so. Come on! You've been at Fox TV too long."

Hostin called Bila out as well, saying, "I just really don't think we should allow this kind of misinformation on our air…. We've heard the United States surgeon general debunk everything that you've just said."

Bila ignored the fact that COVID-19 vaccines are saving lives. The vaccines greatly decrease one's chances of being infected with COVID-19. And while it is possible to be infected with COVID-19 if one is fully vaccinated, "breakthrough" infections — as medical professionals call them — have been, as a rule, less severe than infections among the unvaccinated. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, for example, was a breakthrough case and has said that his infection probably would have been much worse had he not been unvaccinated.

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President Joe Biden and his top White House medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, have been stressing that at this point, COVID-19 is largely a "pandemic of the unvaccinated." Although many COVID-19 fatalities are still occurring in the United States, the vast majority of them are among unvaccinated people — and the vast majority of vaccinated Americans who are experiencing breakthrough COVID-19 infections are surviving.