Jake Tapper Outraged by Scenes of Joggers, Rollerbladers, Hand-Holding Couples Defying Shelter-in-Place Edict: ‘Who the Hell Are You?!’

CNN’s Jake Tapper repeatedly expressed outrage at footage of people jogging, roller-blading, holding hands, and generally going out and about in San Francisco, even after that city issued a shelter-in-place edict to prevent the spread of the coronavirus: “Who the hell are you?”

Setting aside his typical equanimity, Tapper offered up a personal anecdote while pulling no punches in criticizing the apparently cavalier approach some San Franciscans were taking toward the outbreak. On Monday, San Francisco Mayor London Breed issued a shelter-in-place order for the city, the strictest social distancing measure of its kind in the country.

“Look, I mean, my dad is turning 80 this month, you know?” Tapper said. “People out there who are millennials or younger and thinking, ‘Well, if you’re 80 years old, you know, it only affects people who are in their 70s and 80s,’ which isn’t true, although obviously the people in their 60s, 70s and 80s are most vulnerable to it. What are you saying, that my 80-year-old dad, therefore, is fair game?”

“The selfishness of people who are not taking this seriously is — it’s just maddening,” he added. “I get that people don’t understand it, but what bothers me is people who think, ‘I’m young, I’m not going to die from it.’ First of all, not necessarily true. Second of all, you could get really, really sick and you could be injured for the rest of your life with scarred lungs, and third of all, who the hell are you to be walking around just giving this to old people and you just flippantly dismiss it?”

Tapper’s visceral response was spurred by CNN reporting that showed people in the city defying the lockdown, by cycling, jogging, and rollerblading along the waterfront.

“The mayor said to me that people are allowed if they need to go out and go for a walk and get a breath of fresh air, they’re allowed to as long as they social distance. But that’s not what we just saw,” Tapper pointed out. “We saw people going for jogs, people going about their life as if it’s normal. We’re being told by the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health that this is not normal. First of all, we see a whole bunch of people here who are not distancing. They’re holding hands and walking down the street and, you know, normally I’d say Bravo. But this is, this is actually kind of enraging. The people of San Francisco, or I shouldn’t say the people, but many people in San Francisco have clearly not gotten the message.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.