Fox News personality Brian Kilmeade claimed the actual culprit behind a nationwide surge of COVID-19 cases attributed to the highly contagious Omicron variant is "too much testing," insisting the United States "can’t afford" to bolster its testing infrastructure.
Adding that everywhere he goes he sees “people in pup tents waiting in the cold, waiting in long lines, waiting for a test they more than likely don’t need," Kilmeade suggested the solution to this issue is to simply stop testing altogether—a move that would simply allow Omicron to spread unchecked.
You can hear what Kilmeade, a co-host on Fox & Friends, said in the video below.
Kilmeade went on to attack President Joe Biden, who he accused of "killing" both the virus and the economy, a turn of phrase that inadvertenly gives Biden credit for ending the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic:
“You said you were going to kill the virus, not the economy, you did both! Congratulations! Every single step of the way, you have let the American people down.”
Lost in Kilmeade's rant is the fact The Fox Corporation, which owns Fox News, already required its employees to be tested every single day.
On December 21, ahead of the Christmas holiday, the organization announced it would drop its COVID-19 testing option and require all employees who work in its New York City headquarter offices to receive at least one coronavirus vaccination shot by December 27.
The announcement indicated the organization has every intention to comply with New York City’s vaccine rule, which requires on-site workers at all businesses to be vaccinated.
Additionally, more than 90 percent of Fox’s employees are fully vaccinated. This statistic was noted by Kevin Lord, senior vice president of Fox Corp, in September.
Fox, via the Fox News channel, has continued to downplay the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic even as the country deals with the current surge, a sign that those, like Kilmeade, who have urged their viewers not to get vaccinated have already been inoculated, underscoring the company’s desire for profit at the expense of human lives.
Kilmeade has been widely criticized for his remarks.
Kilmeade has previously doubled down on COVID-19 denial, calling the Biden administration’s focus on vaccination “mind-boggling.”
Kilmeade's remark, issued in July as the nation contended with a surge of cases attributed to the Delta variant, was in response to a plea from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading expert on infectious diseases, for vaccine-hesitant Americans to not make a “political statement” and “get over it” by getting vaccinated as dangerous new variants emerge.
More than 1.08 million people across the country tested positive for Covid-19 on Monday, January 3, a global record, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The data comes after millions of Americans gathered for the holidays to meet their families and friends.
The record is almost double the previous record of about 590,000, set four days before.
