Photo by Edward Jenner on <a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/concept-of-covid-19-in-red-background-4031867/" rel="nofollow">Pexels.com</a>
Whether Democrat or Republican, COVID-19 has an equal probability of infecting either political party. Even President Joe Biden has been quoted saying “[COVID] is not a political issue”. However, that does not stop conservative commentators from stirring up political bias toward a fatal pandemic. In his program last week, commentator Sean Hannity insinuates that Biden being infected with COVID has a relationship to his “cognitively frail nature”-in his words.
“What Joe failed to mention is the current variant, which is BA.5, the dominant variant of the omicron is much, much weaker than the original strain that infected then-President Trump”, says Hannity. “Maybe he wants to hide this from the American people or perhaps he is too cognitively frail to realize”.
Many people interpreted Hannity’s words as implying using the pandemic as a means of “proving Democrats wrong”. Others are furious at the conservative commentator, believing Hannity is upset that his infection was weaker than Trump’s. Biden has addressed the pandemic numerous times with his most recent statement being “What’s different now is our ability to protect ourselves from serious illness due to covid”.
Biden has announced his vaccination status as being “fully vaccinated and twice boosted”. This is likely the reason that Biden’s infection was less fatal. However, vaccinations were not addressed by Hannity that night nor were the overall number of COVID cases throughout that day alone (227,253 cases).
Even other conservative commentators such as Glenn Beck and Dennis Prager have expressed disapproval at Hannity’s comments, deeming them “unacceptable and crude”. “Okay, Sean. Thanks for your input. Yes, Biden is old. But how old is Trump these days? If that’s all you’ve got, you’re going to have a tough time making a new case of your neo-fascist buddy in 2024”, writes. reporter Matt Novak.
