‘COMPLETELY BACKWARDS’

‘Way Too Much Testing!’: Fox News Host Starts 2022 With Unhinged COVID Rant

“You said you were going to kill the virus, not the economy, you did both!” Brian Kilmeade added, inadvertently giving President Biden credit for ending the pandemic.

By Matt Wilstein & Andrew KirellJan 03, 2022

The U.S. is currently experiencing an all-time high in COVID-19 cases and Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade has identified the real culprit: Testing.

In the morning show’s first broadcast of the new year, Kilmeade echoed former president Donald Trump by declaring that there is just “too much testing” going on. “There’s way too much testing!” he exclaimed, adding, nonsensically, “There’s testing to do testing, testing to go back to school, testing to go back to work, we can’t afford it!”

Meanwhile, the CDC has been under fire over the past couple of weeks for not requiring infected individuals to provide a negative COVID test before returning to work after just a five-day quarantine.

Kilmeade went on to complain that everywhere he goes he has to look at “people in pup tents waiting in the cold, waiting in long lines, waiting for a test they more than likely don’t need.” But instead of calling on the Biden administration to improve its testing infrastructure, the host seemed to be suggesting that almost all of the COVID testing happening right now is unnecessary.

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“You said you were going to kill the virus, not the economy, you did both!” Kilmeade added, inadvertently giving President Biden credit for ending the pandemic. “Congratulations! Every single step of the way, you have let the American people down.”

When he was finally done, Kilmeade received a “Bravo!” from his co-host Pete Hegseth, who added, “There’s nothing I could add to that at all, well said summing it up.” But then, because he couldn’t help himself, he went after Biden for putting too much stock in science.

The “too much testing” talking point continued later in the day when Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo called for a massive scaling back in his state’s testing apparatus even as cases continue to hit record highs there.

As Omicron surges, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo says the state is working to "unwind" the COVID "testing psychology" that the federal government has prioritized. pic.twitter.com/cju0o1uVJm
— The Recount (@therecount) January 3, 2022

“We need to unwind this testing—sort of planning and living one’s life around testing. Without it, we’re going to be sort of stuck in the same cycle,” Ladapo said during a press conference with Governor Ron DeSantis. “So it’s really time for people to be living, to make the decisions they want regarding vaccination, to enjoy the fact that many people have natural immunity. And to unwind this preoccupation with only COVID as determining the boundaries and constraints and possibilities of life. And we’re going to start that in Florida.”

As physician Ashish K. Jha put it on Twitter, “This is completely backwards,” adding, “In fact, with ubiquitous testing, we can keep infections low and safely get back to our lives.”