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Molly Butler / Media Matters

Research/Study Research/Study

Fox News’ latest vaccine lie: The COVID vaccine makes you more likely to contract COVID

Written by Alicia Sadowski

Published

Amid a surge in COVID-19 cases due to the omicron variant, Fox New​​s has been relentlessly undermining the vaccination effort, including by recklessly misinterpreting a Danish study on vaccine efficacy against the omicron variant.

The study, circulated by professional COVID-19 “contrarian” Alex Berenson and mentioned in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, was originally published on medRxiv, a website for preliminary studies that have not been peer-reviewed. A warning on the website states the studies “should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.”

This warning did not stop Fox hosts and personalities from citing the study and cherry-picking data to claim that vaccination makes it more likely for an individual to contract COVID-19.  The study found that 90 days post “vaccine protection,” or the date 14 days post-second dose, both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine had negative vaccine efficacy. The authors of the study, however, explained the unusual result as “different behaviour and/or exposure patterns in the vaccinated and unvaccinated cohorts causing underestimation of the vaccine efficacy.” 

In an email to PolitiFact, one of the authors of the study also suggested that the negative efficacy could be explained by the fact that vaccinated people may test more than unvaccinated people and an overrepresentation of vaccinated people in the studied cohort. Furthermore, Fox hosts and personalities failed to convey the authors’ conclusion that “booster vaccination offer[s] a significant increase in protection” and that their “findings highlight the need for massive rollout of vaccinations and booster vaccinations.”

Here are the times that Fox News misrepresented the Danish study or inaccurately stated that vaccines are ineffective against omicron:

Fox News personalities:

  • Fox host Tucker Carlson

  • Host Tucker Carlson: “Research suggests that it's possible the vaccinated are more likely to get and transmit this virus than the unvaccinated are”

  • From the January 3, 2022, edition of Fox News' Tucker Carlson Tonight 

  • Carlson: “A recent study in the Netherlands, for example, found that so-called secondary attack rate — that means the spread of COVID within a household — is higher in double vaccinated individuals than in the unvaccinated. That would be ‘pandemic of the vaccinated.’”

  • From the January 4, 2022, edition of Fox News' Tucker Carlson Tonight 

  • Carlson: “There is evidence that people who get the booster are more likely to get the latest variant.”

  • From the January 7, 2022, edition of Fox News' Tucker Carlson Tonight

  • Carlson: “There's a lot of evidence — a steaming pile of evidence, in fact — that this vaccine, the so-called booster, the third vax is negatively correlated to the new variant. You’re more likely to get it and pass it on. So crazy.”

  • From the January 10, 2022, edition of Fox News' Tucker Carlson Tonight 

  • Fox host Rachel Campos-Duffy

  • Co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy: “Why are we forcing people to get vaccinated when you’re more likely to get the virus if you’re vaccinated in the variant that we have right now?”

  • From the January 8, 2022, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends Saturday 

  • Fox anchor Martha MacCallum

  • Anchor Martha MacCallum: “One preprint study found that after 30 days, the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines no longer had a statistically significant positive effect against omicron. After 90 days, it went negative. For example, vaccinated people were more susceptible to omicron infection. Based on data from Denmark and Canada, vaccinated people had higher rates of omicron infection than unvaccinated people. I mean, this is just enough to make your head spin.”

  • From the January 10, 2022, edition of Fox News' The Story with Martha MacCallum 

  • MacCallum: “I read these stories in The Wall Street Journal about studies from Denmark and studies from Ontario that show the vaccinated might be more likely to contract omicron. … I don't know if these things are accurate.” (The Canadian study referenced was also published on the not-yet-peer-reviewed site medRxiv, and it concluded that a third vaccination dose “provides some protection in the immediate term,” against the omicron variant, but conceded it was “substantially less” than against the delta variant.)

  • From the January 11, 2022, edition of Fox News' The Story with Martha MacCallum

  • Fox host Laura Ingraham

  • Host Laura Ingraham: “And more shocking is the new data that the vaccinated are more likely to contract omicron than the unvaccinated.”

  • From the January 10, 2022, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle 

  • Fox guest Alex Berenson

  • Ingraham Angle guest Alex Berenson: “The vaccines are not just not controlling infection or transmission, but actually accelerating infection and transmission in omicron.”

  • From the January 7, 2021, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle 

  • Fox guest Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)

  • Fox News Primetime guest Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) cited the Denmark study to declare that the “vaccine no longer works.”

  • From the January 10, 2022, edition of Fox News' Fox News Primetime