After Biden Tests Positive For Covid, Fox News Repeatedly Emphasizes One Thing: Vaccines Work
As news broke on Thursday morning that President Joe Biden tested positive for Covid-19, Fox News’s coverage of the breaking news notably pointed out on numerous occasions that Biden had been double boosted and as a result was likely to recover quickly.
Fox News anchor Bret Baier was on air discussing polling with America’s Newsroom anchors Bill Hemmer and Sandra Smith when the news broke and was quick to point out the difference between Biden’s testing positive and then-President Donald Trump, who tested positive in October 2020.
“Remember when President Trump was diagnosed and tested positive for Covid and the uproar about that. It was before all of the vaccines and everything we’ve seen with Covid. But this is the first time that President Biden has tested positive and it is a story of national significance obviously,” Baier noted.
Later while discussing the news with Fox News medical expert Dr. Marc Siegel, Hemmer asked, “He has been double vaxxed and double boosted, and in your own practice you still see infections come through your office, right?”
“Bill, just yesterday a big study came out and showed the second booster has a big impact in decreasing severity. This has been mismessaged all along. It doesn’t prevent spread so it does decrease the risk of ending up in the hospital and that’s one of the other good signs the president himself may recover without a severe outcome here which we are all hoping and praying for,” Siegle said in response.
Earlier in that segment, Siegel gave a strong defense of both vaccines and new treatments against Covid-19, including Paxlovid:
He had two vaccines. He had two boosters. You know, we have Paxlovid, which, as you mentioned, he’s getting, his symptoms are mild congestion. So even at his age, 79 and a half years old, the chances are he’s going to do very well. That shows you how far we have come.
And he has underlying medical conditions. As you know, he has heart disease, atrial fibrillation, which is an arrhythmia. He’s got to be very carefully watched here because of his age, because of his underlying heart disease. But we have tools now that we can use that we didn’t have before, and they work
America’s Newsroom also interviewed former Surgeon General Jerome Adams who also spoke to the efficacy of the boosters and the importance of testing.
“This is the leader of the free world and we want to know, Americans deserve to know what was being done to protect him and who else he exposed. He is around a lot of people on a regular basis. But as you heard people say, he is vaccinated, boosted, up to date on vaccinations, taking paxlovid,” answered Adams.
“Those are all the things recommended for high-risk people, but everyone right now needs to think about doing what they need to protect themselves. I hope he will be okay,” concluded Adams.
Hemmer then asked Adams about how he approaches testing. Adams noted the lack of a “national testing strategy” and then explained how he personally approaches testing and urged everyone who has symptoms to test and to come up with a personal testing protocol to fit their needs and risks.
In a later discussion on the Faulkner Focus, Siegel took aim at the drug companies for moving too slowly on updating vaccines.
“This is where we are. What we see with the president. Mild symptoms. Had four shots. Now getting paxlovid and still gets sick. Has fatigue. He probably shouldn’t be working but the chances are he stays out of the hospital. Where we are this fall Harris, we don’t have the second generation vaccines we need. We don’t have the updated vaccines we need for this particular sub variant,” added the doctor.
Host Harris Faulkner then asked, “Why not?”
“It has been too delayed. Production has been too delayed. Do you remember when the drug companies told us we can reengineer an mRNA vaccine in 3 to 4 weeks? It is more like 5 to 6 months and there is no excuse. The money trail has dried up to some extent. We’ll have next year better vaccines that work against more sub variants. In the meantime, this vaccine still decreases your risk of getting severely ill and it is very important. Paxlovid is a big help,” Siegel concluded.
