Citing asymptomatic coronavirus cases, Rush Limbaugh says “the country should never have been shut down”
Fact check: Even with lockdowns, over 65,000 people have died, and White House model predicts 3,000 dead each day by June
Published
Citation From the May 4, 2020, edition of Premiere Networks’ The Rush Limbaugh Show
RUSH LIMBAUGH (HOST): And I want you to listen to this from the Scarf Queen — Dr. Deborah Birx — this is Saturday night, she was on with Judge Jeanine on the Fox News Channel. And the question from Judge Jeanine, “As we test people, we know more and more have it, and we’re learning that the lethality rate,” the mortality rate, the death rate, “is so much lower than we thought.”
(BEGIN CLIP)
DR. DEBORAH BIRX (WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR): I think we underestimated, very early on, the number of asymptomatic cases. And I think we’re really beginning to understand there are people that get infected, that the symptoms are so low-grade that they don’t even know that they’re infected. And we’re beginning to see that with the New York studies of their sero-antibody studies.
(END CLIP)
LIMBAUGH: Wait just a second — this is not some indiscriminate, minor, little miscalculation. This may be one of the primary bits of evidence why the country should never have been shut down. Asymptomatic — meaning the number of people who have it and never know it, because they do not suffer any symptoms … that’s what asymptomatic means. And what this is doing, is raising — well, lowering the mortality rate by a huge number. And particularly in certain demographics, like younger people, the mortality rate among that demographic is even less.
But this was something that, you know, testing — it was hard to reveal, now they’re starting to figure it out. But it’s just more evidence that the draconian shutdown has not been nearly as necessary. It has been devastating. We’re looking at unemployment levels to the tune of the Great Depression.