Fox News host Tucker Carlson dipped his toe into anti-vaxxer waters on Thursday night as he expressed skepticism over vaccines against the coronavirus, invoking the severe allergic reaction one recent recipient experienced while warning his viewers that the elites would continue threatening them “unless we take it.”
At the top of his top-rated primetime program on Thursday night, the right-wing host—who pivoted from coronavirus alarmist to COVID contrarian months ago—derisively snarked about the amount of positive news coverage the authorization of COVID-19 vaccines has received.
“Suddenly the COVID vaccine is on the morning shows, touted on celebrity Twitter accounts, and the news about it is uniformly glowing,” he sarcastically declared. “This stuff is just great. A lot of famous people say so. Just the other day, the guy who played Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings series got the vaccine. As on any media tour, the paparazzi were there for the dramatic moment when they stuck the needle in his arm.”
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Carlson quickly switched his attention to the recent news that an Alaskan health care worker suffered a serious allergic reaction to the Pfizer vaccine, contrasting that with the overall excitement that has greeted the government approval and distribution of the preventatives.
“‘It was all a fantastic experience,’ according to doctors who treated her,” Carlson said, quoting an article about the situation. “‘During the whole time, she was still enthusiastic she got the vaccine and the benefits it would give her in the future.’”
“What a cheerful patient, she must be,” he further sneered. “We’ve got to assume she is, in any case, because we can’t really know. The authorities did not release her name. All we know is she is a highly satisfied customer. Yet another. Have a vaccine and a smile. Just do it!”
“So, how are the rest of us supposed to respond to a marketing campaign like this? Well, nervously,” Carlson continued. ”Even if you are strongly supportive of vaccines, and we are, even if you recognize how many millions of lives have been saved over the past 50 years by vaccine, and we do, it all seems a bit much, it feels false, because it is, it’s too slick.”
He would go on and say it was “patronizing” that people would say they are excited to receive the vaccine before he claimed the campaign to inoculate the populace was an attempt by the government to exert further control.
“In this country, we control our own bodies,” Carlson said. “They are always telling us that. But no. Suddenly, the rules have changed. On the question of the corona vaccine, our leaders definitely are not pro-choice. Their view is do as you are told and don’t complain. No uncomfortable questions. Those are not just suggestions, they are rules and Silicon Valley aims to enforce them.”
The Fox News star, who has regularly taken aim at Big Tech, went on to complain that Twitter is flagging tweets claiming that the vaccine is used to “control populations” while blasting Facebook for amplifying reassuring information about vaccines.
“So whatever you do, don’t say this is social control because if you do, the richest and most powerful people in the world will act in perfect coordination to shut you down immediately,” he grumbled.
Carlson then took his skepticism around the vaccines several steps further by suggesting that Bill and Melinda Gates, who have been the target of unhinged conspiracies revolving around vaccines, were “happy to take control” and pushing “censorship” surrounding the preventative medicine.
“So [Melinda Gates] is demanding the tech companies censor anyone who contradicts the official storyline on the COVID vaccine, and she is getting her wish,” he asserted. “None of this inspires confidence. Censorship will not convince a single person to take the coronavirus vaccine. In fact, it will have the opposite effect.”
The right-wing host, who Fox News lawyers have successfully argued in court should not be taken seriously, went on to say public health experts shouldn’t be trusted because the post-Thanksgiving surge in coronavirus cases supposedly didn’t occur. (Some U.S. regions haven’t seen an increase in already record-setting infection rates while other areas have experienced massive spikes.)
Carlson’s vaccine skepticism came just a day after the United States experienced more than 3,600 coronavirus deaths, a grim new record. ICU capacity in Southern California has fallen to 0 percent, and cases nationwide have surpassed 17 million. The Fox star, perhaps expectedly, also expressed doubt over those numbers, claiming the death toll was likely inflated.
Americans’ reluctance in receiving inoculations, meanwhile, has declined in recent weeks amid hopeful news about multiple COVID-19 vaccines, the FDA’s approval of the Pfizer vaccine, and the shots being distributed and administered across the country.
