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In an appearance on “Fox & Friends,” White House counselor Kellyanne Conway made a false claim about Covid-19 while discussing President Donald Trump’s decision to revoke US funding for the World Health Organization.
CNN’s Don Lemon and “The Daily Show” host Trevor Noah ripped into Conway for repeating the erroneous right-wing claim that COVID-19 means there have been 18 other coronaviruses.
“This is COVID-19 not COVID-1 folks, so you would think that the people charged with the World Health Organization facts and figures would be on top of that,” Conway ranted.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states on its website that ‘CO’ stands for ‘corona,’ ‘VI’ for ‘virus,’ and ‘D’ for disease. It also makes clear the ’19′ refers to 2019.
Is Kellyanne just being a demagogue? Or does she really not know that COVID-19 doesn’t mean it’s the 19th manifestation of this disease or whatever she seems to be suggesting, but rather that it’s named after the year 2019. It’s a novel coronavirus. That’s why it’s so dangerous. https://t.co/XQ8VmqWPPl
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) April 15, 2020
“His White House is a filled with a bunch of idiots,” Noah said of President Trump’s team. “I know that’s harsh, but I only say that because they are.”
“You would think one of the president’s top advisers would know that its called COVID-19 because it started in 2019, not because it’s the 19th COVID,” Noah correctly stated.
CNN host Don Lemon also set the record straight on his show last night.
“She is the senior counselor to the president,” Lemon reminded his viewers, “one of the people who is supposed to be advising him on this deadly crisis.”
He explained that “the novel coronavirus, novel meaning new, by the way, that it emerged in 2019. So it is a new virus, not the 19th version of it. It emerged in 2019.”
Conservative conspiracy theorist and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Rush Limbaugh falsely told supporters last month that COVID-19 is the 19th coronavirus as well.
“Why do you think this is COVID-19?” he asked. “This is the 19th coronavirus. They’re not uncommon.”
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