Fox News host Tucker Carlson has finally made clear his own supposed vaccination status after spending months turning his show into one of the leading sources and platforms for Covid-19 conspiracies and misinformation in America.
Speaking at an event in California hosted by a church known for its own public flouting of Covid-19 guidelines, Mr Carlson opined that he wouldn’t get another booster shot provided by US health companies, quipping that he had not received the other three doses which previously have been made available to millions of Americans.
“I skipped the first three, I’m not getting that one either,” he said.
The admission was a rare moment of honesty from the conservative commentator who, like many on the right who have homed in on vaccine fears and anti-vax conspiracies as a political opportunity, had been publicly evasive about his vaccination status.
In one conversation with a reporter as recently as last year, he demurred when asked if he had received the vaccine and responded: “Because I’m a polite person, I’m not going to ask you any super-vulgar personal questions like that.” Other Republicans have also insisted that whether or not they have received the vaccine is a tightly guarded medical secret and not a decision that impacts people around them.
Mr Carlson’s latest remarks raise the question as to whether Fox News is allowing one of their highest-rated stars to publicly ignore their Covid-19 policies. The company said in December that 90 per cent of its employees had reported vaccinations, and at the time instituted a rule requiring any employee working in the network’s New York City headquarters to receive at least one dose. Mr Carlson records at least some of his shows in Florida.
The Independent has reached out to a Fox spokesperson for comment.
New York and other states have begun rolling back Covid-19 guidelines and restrictions in recent weeks even as the virus continues to spread across the US, citing vaccinations as crucial for one’s personal protection. Even so, millions of Americans remain unvaccinated for various reasons ranging from age to personal beliefs.
Mr Carlson’s show has long been a home for vaccine conspiracies and misinformation. In one particularly glaring example last year, he falsely linked every recorded death among Americans who had received a Covid-19 vaccine to the vaccines themselves, even though the data he was citing was based on public submissions, was not fact-checked, included deaths from non-vaccine-related incident, and is not considered by experts to be reliable.
He has also frequently hosted on the program Alex Berenson, a former New York Times reporter who was kicked off Twitter for spreading his own Covid conspiracies.
