I didn’t waste much time the other morning (April 20) studying the idiocy of some 2,000 people grouped together in front of the statehouse in Olympia—doing their best to spread corvid-19 while violating both Gov. Jay Inslee’s orders and public health guidance being widely accepted throughout the country.
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John Oliver is one among the many who’s about had it with right-wing media figures—including, Fox News personalities and TV preachers—for spreading conspiracy theories about the coronavirus pandemic. The host of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight” said he’s “f—-ing furious” about it, especially since many of those figures have the ear of President Donald Trump.
As reported by HuffPosts Ed Mazza, Oliver showed footage of protesters demanding an end to the shutdowns meant to stop the spread of the virus. Many were simply repeating talking points from those same media figures. And while his administration, at least ostensibly, supports the shutdowns and social distancing measures those people were protesting, even Trump praised the demonstrators as “great people.”
But as Oliver pointed out, behind the scenes, Fox News was taking the threat very seriously by suspending nonessential business travel, canceling in-person meetings and moving to conduct business via Skype and phone. “Because . . . they only pretend to believe these things on television for money,” Oliver said.
Many of the wilder statements from the network’s personalities were later repeated by Trump.
Meanwhile, as of April 21 (in the morning) 807,007 cases of the virus (only those that have been officially confirmed in this poorly-tested country) had been reported—while 43,827 had died in the U.S.
World-wide, 2,468,933 cases had been reported, with 169,174 deaths.
More than 170,000 people now have died worldwide in the covid-19 pandemic as of April 20, and millions of cases have been reported, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The United States is now the outbreak’s epicenter, with more recorded deaths and reported infections than any other country.
The U.S. total of reported cases is by far the highest in the world. Covid-19 has been confirmed in every state and in most U.S. territories. As more tests are performed, many states are seeing rapid growth in the number of known cases.
An overwhelming majority of Americans, Republicans included, are rejecting right-wing protests — encouraged by President Trump — to immediately “reopen” the country in the midst of the world’s largest and deadliest coronavirus outbreak, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll.
The survey, conducted April 17 to April 19, found that a full 60 percent of the public opposes the largely pro-Trump protesters whose calls for governors to “liberate” their states by lifting lockdown measures have attracted intense media attention in recent days — and whose message the president amplified Friday in a series of all-caps “LIBERATE” tweets about three swing states: Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia.
