Dr. Drew: Media needs to shut up over coronavirus hysteria
The press-induced panic over coronavirus will have real consequences, warns Dr. Drew Pinsky.
Addiction specialist Dr. Drew Pinsky panned the media's response to the coronavirus outbreak, telling "The Ingraham Angle" on Monday that the root of the larger problem domestically has been the panic being spread by the mainstream media.
"Essentially the entire problem we are having is due to panic, not the virus," he said. "I was saying this six weeks ago. We have six deaths from the coronavirus, 18,000 from the flu. Why isn't the message, 'Get your flu vaccine'"?
Pinsky, host of "Dr. Drew After Dark," said the coronavirus impact has been milder than initially projected.
"The entirety of the problem now is that people are being pushed into bankruptcy. Travel is down. The supply chain is being interrupted because of panic," he reiterated.
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"The flu virus is vastly more consequential and nobody is talking about that."
He said that people who are wearing respirator masks are engaged in "panic behavior" rather than preventative measures.
"It is a press-induced panic that will have real consequences. It will not be the virus," Pinsky said.
President Trump boasted of his administration’s work in combating the coronavirus during a campaign rally in Charlotte, N.C. Monday evening, while laying into Democrats and his political rivals for trying to “politicize” the outbreak.
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Trump promised that there will soon be a vaccine ready to deal with the deadly virus and said that his administration is working hard to contain the current outbreak in the United States.
“My administration has taken the most aggressive approach in American history to deal with coronavirus,” Trump said on stage at the Bojangles Coliseum. “We have strong borders and our tough and early actions have proven 100 percent right”
He added: “We closed our borders very early to certain countries. We took a lot of heat ... Washington Democrats are trying to politicize the coronavirus.”
Fox News' Andrew O'Reilly contributed to this report.
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