If Your Dumbass MAGA Uncle Watched Tucker Carlson Last Night, You Need To Read This

Fucking Tucker Carlson, goddammit.

There is new misinformation du jour about the novel coronavirus and it is all over Facebook, and of course, it is now being injected into the brainless heads of Fox News viewers like Trump-brand bleach. 

Fucking Tucker Carlson, goddammit. If there was a moment where he was being halfway decent about the dangers of COVID-19 — better than Hannity, at least — that moment is over. Carlson gave a prominent place to the misinformation du jour last night, so if your rightwing Uncle Bugfuck is ranting drunk today about how coronavirus totally isn't that bad, you need to know where it came from.

Carlson featured the video that's flying all over Facebook, of two dumbass urgent care doctors in the medical hub of "Bakersfield," who have done a little of their own back-of-the-napkin "research" and determined that coronavirus is a mere sniffle. Tucker Carlson, of course, presented the doctors as the REAL experts THEY don't want you to know about, because Tucker Carlson is full of shit. Whenever God sends him to hell, this video will be part of the evidence God's prosecution presents in the trial:

Tucker: Are coronavirus lockdowns working?    www.youtube.com 

Carlson began by referring to new studies showing that COVID-19 is actually much more widespread in the population than we originally knew, which is something pretty much everybody suspected. He extrapolated that this therefore means it's much less deadly than we thought, simply because all these people have it and aren't symptomatic. (We still don't know why some people remain asymptomatic, while others — many others — get very sick and die. We do know it's very deadly though, to the tune of almost 60,000 dead Americans so far, in just two months. And we don't know about what longterm effects might hit people who were exposed and didn't die.) Carlson accused "the people in charge" of "ignoring the science." Tucker Carlson's science, which is totally better than THEIR science.

Then he showed everybody video of the two doctor idiots fromJohns Hopkinsthe urgent care in Bakersfield, and that is where our video and (very long but important) transcript pick up.

CARLSON: Here's a physician and researcher from California called Dr. Dan Erickson. Erickson and a partner just delivered a 50-minute briefing on the latest numbers from California. The video they made has been viewed millions of times in a few days online. [If it's a viral video, it MUST be true! - Ed.] The bottom line is after looking carefully at the data, these two researchers have concluded that California should end its shelter-in-place order:

 DR. DAN ERICKSON: We've seen 1,227 deaths in the state of California, with a possible incidence or prevalence of 4.7 million. That means you have a 0.03 chance [sic] of dying from COVID-19 in the state of California. 0.03 chance [sic] of dying from COVID in the state of California. Is that — does that necessitate sheltering in place? Does that necessitate shutting down medical systems? Does that necessitate people being out of work? 

CARLSON: These are serious people who've done this for a living for decades.

 Actually no. They are urgent care docs from Bakersfield (Bakersfield's finest!), and they are not epidemiologists. They own a string of urgent care facilities, and they appear to be mad COVID-19 has fucked up their business model. In their "presentation" they also bitched and moaned about churches being closed but not the Costco. These are not serious people. They love them some Donald Trump, though! But they won't wear masks. They will probably be given Trump administration jobs by dinnertime.

Carlson went on to present these Bakersfield math majors (wait, not math majors) as the final word on corona:

CARLSON: They have in their hands the largest currently available data sets on this question. And the question they're asking after analyzing all of those numbers: Are the lockdowns worth it? So what is the answer to that? What's so striking is that so many politicians, the ones enforcing the lockdowns, don't seem at all interested in asking it. Instead they're bulling (?) forward as if nothing has changed. Just today, the San Francisco Bay Area announced it will be extending its lockdown until the end of May, that's five weeks from now. What is the scientific justification for doing that? They didn't tell us, because there is none. None.

Tucker Carlson says there is no scientific justification, therefore there is none. None. (Trump's CDC director Robert Redfield, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Dr. Deborah Birx, and all other public health and epidemiology experts disagree.)

Are These Exxon Franchise Owners (Not Actual Exxon Franchise Owners) Smarter Than Actual Epidemiologists? HARD TO SAY!

Over at Cal Matters, an actual journalism website, medicine and health reporter Barbara Feder Ostrov examined Dr. Erickson's junk science about a "0.03 death rate [ sic ]" from COVID-19, and spoke to actual epidemiologists to see if these guys are full of shit. You will never guess what she found out.

They dressed in scrubs. They sounded scientific. And last week's message from two Bakersfield doctors was exactly what many stuck-at-home Americans wanted to hear: COVID-19 is no worse than influenza, its death rates are low and we should all go back to work and school.

Drs. Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi, who own urgent care centers in the region, had called a press conference to release their conclusions about the results of 5,213 COVID-19 tests they had conducted at their centers and testing site. They claimed the results showed that the virus had spread further in the area, undetected, and thus wasn't all that dangerous.

But public health experts were quick to debunk the doctors' findings as misguided and riddled with statistical errors — and an example of the kind of misleading information they are forced to waste precious time disputing.

How shockingly shocking.

Dr. Carl Bergstrom, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Washington, explained to Ostrov that the dipshits shouldn't have assumed their test subjects — people who specifically came to an urgent care looking for corona tests, because of how they were sick — were a good subset of the general population, comparing it to "estimating the average height of Americans from the players on an NBA court."

"They've used methods that are ludicrous to get results that are completely implausible," Bergstrom said.

Bergstrom explained all the wrongfuckingwrong things about this Dr. Spaceman theory of COVID-19 in this Twitter thread, if you are interested. SPOILER: Erickson and his buddy Massihi are not very good at math or science. Did we mention they are also not epidemiologists? That seems important.

Ostrov noted that the American College of Emergency Physicians and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine have also called bullshit on these idiots:

[T]he American College of Emergency Physicians and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine declared they "emphatically condemn the recent opinions released by Dr. Daniel Erickson and Dr. Artin Messihi. These reckless and untested musings do not speak for medical societies and are inconsistent with current science and epidemiology regarding COVID-19. As owners of local urgent care clinics, it appears these two individuals are releasing biased, non-peer reviewed data to advance their personal financial interests without regard for the public's health."

Want another actual expert? Here's Andrew Noymer, a public health professor at UC Irvine, quoted in the Bakersfield newspaper:  

"They're advancing factual inaccuracies and playing off the esoteric nature of the mortality stats to make a case that the economy should be reopened," Noymer said. "I agree it should be reopened, but it should be opened deliberately, bit by bit, and informed by science. Not informed by a misreading of the mortality."

How about another actual expert? Here's an ER doc in Michigan, as quoted by Ostrov, calling out what really seems to be motivating these Trump-loving dumbfuck boy wonders of Bakersfield, shut up, it IS TOO where all the best and brightest medical minds go to open up urgent care chains!

"As struggling business owners, their economic frustration is understandable. But it can't be mistaken for science. People trust doctors," Michigan emergency room doctor Rob Davidson wrote on Twitter. "When they tell Fox viewers to ignore recommendations from real experts, many will believe them…The impact of rejecting science-proven recommendations in exchange for these erroneous ideas would overwhelm health systems and cost lives. While re-opening the economy might be good for their Urgent Care Centers (sic), it would kill medical personnel on the actual front lines."

So that's that. Literally every actual expert in the field is debunking these clowns, and handily. And they seem more than a bit annoyed that they're having to do it.

Time To Attack Dr. Fauci!

After Tucker Carlson's fact-free bullshit that your Uncle Bugfuck is now drunk-quoting, he went on to say everything is great now, that the "curve has been flattened, but it's likely not because of the lockdowns." (How does he know? Just does!) He said hospitals haven't collapsed from coronavirus, and that actually hospitals are collapsing "from lack of patients." He and the medical rent-a-cops are right about one thing, though: California's COVID-19 curve got flattened way earlier than anybody else's. California — specifically the Bay Area — also shut everything down first. Oh golly, we wonder if those things are directly related!

Then Carlson attacked Dr. President Dictator Anthony Fauci, the boss of all of us, whose wishes must be obeyed:

CARLSON: Earlier this month, Dr. Anthony Fauci, whom we are apparently required by law to respect no matter what he says, suggested that, in fact, we may never be allowed to resume normal life.

Go fuck yourself, Tucker.

CARLSON: Now we should tell you that is the same Dr. Fauci — and keep this to yourself, because as noted, it's not allowed to show any skepticism whatsoever — but that's the same Dr. Fauci who also announced that shaking hands [...] should be done away with forever, but then a week later told Snapchat that actually it's fine to have sex with strangers you meet on Tinder! That was his epidemiological advice.

Another lie from Tucker Carlson, because that is absolutely not what Fauci said. Indeed, Fauci — adorable old balls Dr. Fauci — seemed to not initially realize the interviewer was asking specifically about meeting up just for sex , because he started talking about "relative risk," and whether you were willing to stay six feet apart from the person you met on the dating app, and wear masks and whatnot. (Difficult to stay six feet apart WHILE FUCKING, Tucker.) Fauci did reference boning, but was clearly troubled by the idea, saying ultimately, "well, then that's your choice regarding a risk."

Are you shockingly shocked Tucker Carlson outright lied to his viewers about what Fauci said? Not if you're not stupid.

In Summary And In Conclusion!

After that, Tucker Carlson attacked Dr. Zeke Emanuel, Rahm's brother, because Fox News likes   attacking Zeke Emanuel, Rahm's brother. The funniest part was when Carlson cautioned listeners to always be careful when somebody like Emanuel tells you what "the truth is," because that means they are about to lie. Because aren't Donald Trump and his Fox News asslickers always kind of doing that? Haha anyway!

Carlson also said THEY have not mentioned that there has never been a successful vaccine for any kind of coronavirus, which is funny because we have heard THEY mention that quite a few times. We guess we just actually make a habit of listening to what THEY say, instead of drinking box wine while we rely on Tucker Carlson to tell us the truth about what THEY say.

For more on why the Fabulous Bakersfield Boys and Tucker Carlson are totally fucking full of shit, we refer you to a not-very-well-known website called Google.

This is a long post, but like we said, this video of Dr. Dumbfuck and Dr. Other Dumbfuck are EVERYFUCKINGWHERE right now. On Fox News, on Facebook, even on the Facebook pages of people who are otherwise smart. Misinformation and disinformation are getting worse, not better, during this pandemic.

And the more people believe it, the more people will die.

Well done, Tucker Carlson.

[ Cal Matters ]

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