Fox News’ 34-year-old White House correspondent Peter Doocy played devil’s advocate with Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, asking why vaccinated Americans should wear masks while the Border Patrol releases infected migrants into Texas communities. Doocy not only makes Fox News look bad, he smears all Republicans that’s painted with the anti-science broad brush, complaining about new mask mandates due the highly infectious Delta variant. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, 52, changed mask policy July 27, asking vaccinated Americans to wear masks indoors in high infection areas. Doocy doesn’t get the fact that his messaging to anti-vaxxers and others opposed to wearing masks only makes a bad situation worse, no matter how hypocritical he sees the CDC’s change of guidance. Doocy and others at Fox News, like 52-year-old Tucker Carlson, only care about ratings.
Arguing on TV about the advisability of wearing masks indoors or outdoors makes Fox News look only rebellious, pandering to an audience that needs to take public health more seriously. “You talked about this administration have a priority of protecting the American people,” Doocy asked Jean-Pierre. “Can you help us understand why is it that the federal government is asking vaccinated Americans to wear mask to stop the spread of Covid-19 but at the same time, federal agents are also releasing Covid-19 border crossers into small towns in Texas,” Doocy asked Jean-Pierre. Asking such questions only makes Fox News look irresponsible for not doing everything possible to slow infection rates, especially with the highly infectious Delta variant. Infection rates have surged around the country due to the India-originated variant that shows more contagiousness that the original virus.
Doocy plays contrarian at most White House press conferences conducted by Press Secretary Jen Psaki. But when it comes to the Covid-19 issue, it makes Fox News and Republicans look out-of-touch questioning new CDC guidance when it comes to mask mandates in highly infectious areas. “Well, let’s step back for a second,” Jean- Pierre told Doocy. “CBP [Customs and Border Protection] provides migrants with PPE from the moment they are taken into custody and migrants are required to keep masks on at all times, including when the are being transferred or in the process of being released,” Jean-Pierre told Doocy. But the real issue involves dealing with a highly contagious infectious disease crisis that continues to plague the U.S., not matter what the progress. Doocy makes it out like the CDC operates on no science, only political issues that help improve 78-year-old President Joe Biden’s approval numbers.
Biden’s approval number are far higher than former President Donald Trump, who, for whatever reason, was seen by the public as taking the Covid-19 crisis too casually. “If anyone exhibits signs of illness in CBP custody, the are referred to local health systems for appropriate testing, diagnosis, isolation, and treatment,” Jean-Pierre, said in a far too complex response to Doocy. Doocy was trying to score political points when Covid-19 is a public health crisis not a political football. Trump found out the hard way in the 2020 election what happens when the public doesn’t like your handling of a public health crisis. Instead of questioning the administration’s mask mandates with vaccinated citizens, Doocy should focus on why the White House has confidence in 80-year-old Dr. Anthony Fauci, when he funded the Wuhan Institute of Virology [WIV] that might have created the deadly novel cornavirus.
When it comes to masks, whether indoors or outdoors, in schools or in businesses, questioning CDC guidance makes Fox News and the GOP look bad. Common infectious disease protections like masks, social distancing, hand washing, etc., are not worth arguing over, especially when confronted with the highly contagious Delta variant. Fauci said yesterday that even double-vaccinated adults can have dangerous levels of Covid-19, some 1,000 times more in the nasal area that the original virus. When it comes to vaccinated citizens, it’s possible vaccines work so well even against the Delta variant that infected people don’t know that they’re infecting others, without any knowledge of being sick. Asymptomatic cases were always a problem infecting people, now a more complicated problem with vaccinated individuals. More asymptomatic cases make masks even more important.
Most journalists can’t be expected to know the complexities of an infectious disease crisis like the Covid-19 global pandemic. Journalists like Doocy make networks like Fox News or the GOP look ignorant questioning mask mandates even with vaccinated citizens. With all the effort to return to normal life again, the CDA wants to relax its guidance like everyone else. But when the Delta variant creates a new surge of infections around the country, especially in lower vaccinated areas, CDC guidance must change to help citizens adjust behavior before they inadvertently spread the infection. Doocy—and other journalists—wouldn’t know that highly effective mRNA vaccines create more asymptomatic infections, inadvertently spreading the virus, because no one knows they’re infected. So when it comes with wearing masks as a basic public health safeguard, Fox New should reconsider its opposition.
