Bret Baier Clarifies CDC Director’s ‘75%’ Comments That Were Reported on Fox: ‘We Have to Get the Numbers Right’

Fox News anchor Bret Baier joined the network’s daytime news show America Reports on Tuesday to help clear up some misinformation regarding Covid-19 statistics that spread on right-wing Twitter as well as Fox News.

Baier, who has been guest hosting Fox News Sunday, noted that he spoke with CDC Director Rochelle Walensky over the weekend and got her to correct one incorrect figure that had been highly publicized in recent days.

Baier noted, “At the beginning of that we got her to say the numbers were not right, that Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Sotomayor was wrong saying 100,000 kids were hospitalized, the number was 3,500 roughly at that time.”

Baier was referencing a false claim Sotomayor made during a Friday hearing on the legality of the Biden administration’s vaccine and testing mandate for large employers.

“It’s not to say that it’s not serious and that kids shouldn’t take it seriously,” Baier added, “but the numbers of seriously ill or dying kids is very small if you look at the big picture.”

Baier continued, clearing up another piece of misinformation going viral.

“Another soundbite out there we should clarify,” he said, “that 75%, she said, Walensky said, 75% of those who died had four co-morbidities, very ill going in. That soundbite is where she is talking about vaccinated people.”

Baier was referring to a clip from a Friday interview on ABC’s Good Morning America, in which the network edited out some context for the soundbite – that Walensky was only referring to a single study of vaccinated people.

The out-of-context soundbite went viral online, with everyone from Donald Trump Jr. to Clay Travis to Ted Cruz tweeting it out under the false assumption that 75% of all Covid deaths involved seriously sick people.

The out-of-context clip was also covered on Fox News. Several shows — including Baier’s Special Report, The Five, Tucker Carlson Tonight and The Ingraham Angle — covered the Walensky comment without context.

“I asked if she knew people who went to the hospital with Covid or for Covid and those who died, could you break that out on Fox News Sunday, and she didn’t have the stats,” Baier added.

“The soundbite was from prior, she was talking about vaccinated people and she had those stats,” again referring to the ABC interview.

“So, listen. We have to get the numbers right, we have to be able to say what it is and after two years the CDC should have those stats,” Baier concluded.

Watch above via Fox News