In the media’s tradition of fear mongering about holidays, gathering with friends and families, and anything else that brings joy to people, MSNBC is now freaking out about the possibility of people having Super Bowl Parties. On Friday’s MSNBC Live with Stephanie Ruhle, substitute host Chris Jansing collaborated with Obama's former CDC director Tom Frieden to command that people not do simple things that make them happy. Frieden mandated that Americans have “virtual” Super Bowl parties and alleged that such parties will be “followed by deaths.”
Jansing began the segment by asking about vaccine distribution, which Frieden, a former Obama stooge, used as an opportunity to command Americans to have “virtual” Super Bowl parties:
FRIEDEN: It's really important that we double down on protection protocols, wear a mask. This weekend please, if you're going to have a party, make it virtual or just with people in your household. What we saw around Thanksgiving, Christmas, was a massive increase in the U.S. and we're just coming off that huge increase while we're ramping up vaccination.
How dare anyone want to do anything at all which would make them happy! How selfish it is to want to be a normal human being and do normal things. Of course, MSNBC freaked out over people celebrating Christmas together so this is no surprise. This is also no surprise coming from Frieden who on NBC enthusiastically embraced lockdowns by claiming that government has the “moral authority” to lock people in their homes.
Additionally, Frieden was wrong about the “massive increase” of cases around Christmas and Thanksgiving. There was an increase in cases, but it was only around a 10% increase which is in line with how much flu cases increase around the holidays during normal years.
Jansing enthusiastically jumped in to attack Super Bowl parties and continued the liberal media’s obsession with bashing Florida for allowing its citizens to have relatively normal lives:
So you mentioned the Super Bowl parties and we keep hearing, you know, don't have people from outside of your household in for a party. We saw that video that Sam Brock shot, you know, a supermarket, here it is in Florida where nobody is wearing a mask and people say, well, I was in and out or I'm just having a few people over.
Of course the media hacks seem to forget that despite having strict lockdowns, comparable population numbers, and a much younger population, California has basically performed the same as Florida. The obsession with Florida seems to stem from the fact that Florida has a Republican governor who has refused to issue authoritarian lockdown and mask policies.
Jansing pressed Frieden to reveal the awful “consequences” of people gathering with their friends and loved ones to watch football:
Help people to understand what the consequences could be of interacting with people, whether it's in a grocery store or in your home for a Super Bowl party, what does that mean to the overall picture? And why are these warnings so persistent, not to do it?
Too bad Americans are too dumb to assess their own risk.
Frieden happily indulged in more fear mongering by suggesting that there will be “deaths” due to Super Bowl parties:
Every time there are contact events, whether it's a holiday or travel or if people get together with many others outside of their household, we see a surge in cases. Cases are followed by hospitalizations and hospitalizations are followed by deaths.
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Read the full February 5th transcript here:
MSNBC Live with Stephanie Ruhle
2/5/20
9:25:28 AM
CHRIS JANSING: Let me bring in former CDC director Tom -- Dr. Tom Frieden. I mean, look, a lot of people are frustrated about the whole vaccination rollout and now you see these two stories. Local trusted pharmacies that say we want to be part of the solution. A -- a -- an organization that seemed to be part of the solution that gets shut down. When you hear stories like that, what goes through your mind?
TOM FRIEDEN (FORMER CDC DIRECTOR): Well, we're in a difficult time. There is not enough vaccine to go around. Over the next couple of months, there's going to be much more vaccine. But we still have very high levels of spread throughout most of the United States. And even though things are getting better, they're still really bad. So there's a lot of COVID out there and there's not enough vaccine. In that time, it's really important that we double down on protection protocols, wear a mask. This weekend please, if you're going to have a party, make it virtual or just with people in your household. What we saw around Thanksgiving, Christmas, was a massive increase in the U.S. and we're just coming off that huge increase while we're ramping up vaccination. But the vaccines aren't going to be widely available for -- for at least a -- a couple of months. And --
JANSING: Yeah.
FRIEDEN: -- therefore we need to be really careful right now.
JANSING: So you mentioned the Super Bowl parties and we keep hearing, you know, don't have people from outside of your household in for a party. We saw that video that Sam Brock shot, you know, a supermarket, here it is in Florida where nobody is wearing a mask and people say, well, I was in and out or I'm just having a few people over. Help people to understand what the consequences could be of interacting with people, whether it's in a grocery store or in your home for a Super Bowl party, what does that mean to the overall picture? And why are these warnings so persistent, not to do it?
FRIEDEN: The more time you spend indoors, sharing air with people who are not from your household, the more likely it is that you'll get infected. In addition, what we're seeing is the steady increase in more transmissible variants. Mutant forms of the virus that can spread explosively. What we're seeing in countries around the world we saw earlier in the UK and Ireland, we're seeing now in Israel, is really an incredible increase, just an explosion of cases as these very transmissible variants come. So we've got these two trends where we've got more transmissible variants and we've got the possibility of a lot of internal contact. Every time there are contact events, whether it's a holiday or travel or if people get together with many others outside of their household, we see a surge in cases. Cases are followed by hospitalizations and hospitalizations are followed by deaths.