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CNBC Personality Slammed After Suggesting We Deliberately Infect Everyone With Coronavirus To Get It Over With

Mike Walsh
Mar. 09, 2020
Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images the New Yorker

Coronavirus has officially reached the USA.

COVID-19 has been confirmed in at least 34 states and the District ofColumbia.

There have been 21 confirmed deaths in the USA from the virus.

But elected officials—as well as some members of the media—have consistently been choking on their own feet while dealing with the pandemic.

Rick Santelli on CNBC came under fire for suggesting that the easiest way to deal with the outbreak was just to infect everybody with the virus so that the healthy could "get over it."

Santelli—an editor for CNBC News Network since 1999—gained a lot of negative attention after a 2009 rant on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange was credited with the emergence of the far-right "Tea Party" movement during the Obama administration.





Coronavirus is infectious enough and manifests so differently in patients that it is estimated that up to 70% of the world's population will be infected with the strain, but not everybody will experience severe symptoms.

Therefore, people won't go in for a costly doctor's visit and may go to work with the symptoms and infect more vulnerable populations.





Santelli later went on record to recant his outrageous idea, saying that "It was just a stupid thing to say."

"It is not appropriate in this instance, and we are resilient, both in the United States and in the globe, and that resilience will get us through."





The outbreak is still very much in its early stages. So far, eight states have officially declared a state of emergency for Coronavirus.

The Dow Jones Industrial average tanked on Thursday afternoon due to the outbreak. The greater global consequences remain to be seen.