Fox News guest says network’s anchors are ‘virtue signalling’ by backing vaccinations

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Over the last two days, conservative figures ranging from Fox News hosts to lawmakers have pulled a 180 regarding the coronavirus vaccine, urging their audiences and constituents to take the shot and save their lives.

The push included vaccine endorsements from Fox News hosts Steve Doocy and Sean Hannity as well as Congressman Steve Scalise and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

For college Republican group TPUSA and Fox News host Tucker Carlson, however, all of those endorsements amount to "virtue signaling”.

Mr Kirk, whose organisation is best known for a group of college students protesting "safe spaces" while wearing adult diapers, appeared on Mr Carlson's show to complain that CNN was overstepping its bounds as a news organisation by encouraging its viewers to take the vaccine.

Mr Carlson openly questioned when it became the role of news organisations to pass along critical information to its viewers.

"These are not experts, and yet, they are speaking with this moral authority, you must do this because we know – and, of course, they don't know," Mr Carlson said. "And questions that anyone else raises, including on this show, they shout down immediately with slurs. Like, when – when did this become their role, to do stuff like this?"

Mr Carlson regularly offers his perspectives despite not being an expert in many of the topics he covers on his show.

Mr Kirk agreed and went on to question why conservatives were suddenly backing the coronavirus vaccine, calling it "virtue signaling”.

"That's exactly right. The other question is why all of a sudden in the last 48 hours has there been this almost coordinated effort of people on the establishment center-right, kind of virtue signaling and telling every single person to get vaccinated, while we're starting to see this kind of disturbing increase of activity on the VAERS database?" Mr Kirk said.

Mr Carlson nodded along.

There is no "disturbing increase" in the VAERS database, which is intended to log medical incidents that occur in the aftermath of someone receiving a vaccine.

Mr Kirk, Mr Carlson and others have frequently used VAERS as a way to drum up concern around the vaccines. They suggest that each time a log occurs in VAERS, it represents a medical mishap concerning a vaccine. That is not true. VAERS is a system used by healthcare workers for reporting any medical incident or noteworthy development a patient experiences after receiving a vaccine. Just because an incident is logged in VAERS does not mean it was caused by a vaccine. The database even has a warning on its homepage advising readers not to draw conclusions based solely on VAERS data.

The reason healthcare workers use the database is to establish patterns. If people started taking a vaccine and all across the country healthcare workers were reporting in VAERS that their patients under 12-years-old were developing a rash, it would establish a pattern and prompt an investigation to determine whether or not the vaccine was causing the rash.

So far, only three deaths have been attributable to the vaccine, and each of those deaths were from the Johnson & Johnson shot that has side effects for a very small number of people with a specific medical condition.