The Megyn Kelly Show - Fauci, Cuomo, Hunter, and Omicron, with Sen. Rand Paul, Miranda Devine, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, and Dr. David Dowdy | Ep. 212

Episode Date: December 1, 2021

Megyn Kelly is joined by Senator Rand Paul, Miranda Devine, New York Post columnist and author of "Laptop From Hell," Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Professor of Health Policy, Stanford University, and Dr. David Dowdy, Infectious Disease Epidemiologist, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, to talk about Dr. Fauci's latest political statements, CNN suspending Chris Cuomo, Hunter Biden's laptop and President Bien's involvement with China, why we shouldn't panic about the Omicron variant, why America should have put more effort into therapeutic development, the effectiveness of masks on adults and kids, whether vaccine immunity or natural immunity is stronger, COVID boosters, Fauci's conflict of interest, and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow 

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. We have a packed show for you today. Two of our favorite docs, rational COVID experts, are here with us to answer your questions and mine. Don't you want to get to the bottom of this? All you know, once again, the Omicron misinformation machine is out there. Everyone's trying to panic you. Should we be panicked? Reasonable people are honestly saying, I'm open-minded to panic. It's like, do I actually need to? And I think you're going to hear some reassuring answers today. And Chris Cuomo is apparently out at CNN, though it's a little unclear, at least for now he's out, indefinitely suspended. Miranda Devine, brilliant, brilliant of the New York Post, is with me to talk about

that, the Cuomo brothers, and her new book on Hunter Biden called The Laptop from Hell. It's a great title. But first, just two days after telling the American public that the Omicron variant is not a cause for panic, it seems President Biden is about to cause a whole lot of panic for holiday travelers. The president is reportedly set to announce strict new travel rules for anyone flying into this country, including vaccinated Americans returning, which may include requiring you to self-quarantine for a week, even if you're vaccinated and you test negative. So forget it if you thought you were going out of the country for Christmas. And if you don't follow the rules, possible fines might be coming your way. Joining me now, Senator Rand Paul. Senator, great to have you back in the

program. So let's start there. What do you make of the latest threat that now you're vaccinated, you've tested negative, you leave the country, you come back in with a negative test, and you still might have to quarantine for seven days? You know, I think it's hard to know yet whether the Omicron variant is going to be a disaster or whether it might even be a less lethal variant. We just don't know yet. Some of the initial reports from South Africa show it having actually milder symptoms. I think we'll know more in a couple of weeks, but I think it's premature for people to freak out. I don't think in general bans were. There was a certain amount of hypocrisy to condemning, obviously, Trump's bans and now saying, oh, they're fine because they're much more enlightened under Joe Biden.

But I think there's something to be said for the idea that maybe bans don't work on travel. The Omicron variant has been found in 12 different countries already, which probably means it's in another couple of dozen may well already be here. And so freaking out and having travel restrictions hurts the economy, but doesn't necessarily do anything about the spread of the virus. But the instinct remains to panic. Even the head of the South African Medical Association has come out and said, what do you do? Why are you doing this? It's not time to panic yet. We've only seen mild symptoms, as you point out.

We've had no hospitalizations. No one required oxygen. No one died. And this thing hasn't hasn't really been much. We just wanted to let you know we saw it and it had all these mutations on it. So we want to call your attention. But you're overreacting. But that's what we do. Now, meantime, Dr. Fauci, your friend, seems to himself and the way he has, I will tell you, as a private citizen, somewhat alarmed me. This is him over the weekend talking about the attacks on him by senators like Ted Cruz, and I'm sure you were in there too, and talking about why he finds it inappropriate. This is Soundbite One. My job has been totally focused on doing what I can with the talents and the influence I have to make scientific advances to protect the health of the American public. So anybody who spends lies and threatens and all that theater that goes on with some of the investigations and the congressional committees and the Rand Pauls and all that other nonsense.

That's noise, Margaret. That's noise. Senator Cruz told the attorney general you should be prosecuted. Yeah, I have to laugh at that. I should be prosecuted. What happened on January 6th, Senator? I'm just going to do my job and I'm going to be saving lives and they're going to be lying. Anybody who's looking at this carefully realizes that there's a distinct anti-science flavor to this. So if they get up and criticize science,

nobody's going to know what they're talking about. But if they get up and really aim their bullets at Tony Fauci, well, people could recognize there's a person there. So it's easy to criticize, but they're really criticizing science because I represent science. Criticism of him is criticism of science because he represents science. And you're a medical doctor yourself. Your thoughts on it? You know, I think there's a great danger when a government bureaucrat sets themselves up as representing science. It, to me, doesn't conjure up images of freedom. It conjures up images of the medieval church repressing science. You know, science should never be beholden to government imprimatur or government dogma. And the thing is,

most of the time when he's talking about mandates or edicts that come from him, they're usually not based in science. So, for example, he's been saying we're under vaccinated as a country. The truth is actually the opposite. Well over 90 percent of those over 65 at high risk have chosen voluntarily to get vaccinated for children. He says, well, we should mandate it on the children. And yet the death rate among children is almost zero. And if you look at this and you say, well, do we have enough immunity to slow this down? It now appears, even according to the CDC, that well over 100 million people in America, a third to maybe a half of Americans have had COVID naturally. But if you don't count that natural immunity, then you jump to the conclusion, oh, my, oh, my, we're under vaccinated. We must mandate this. And that's probably not the truth and very much open to debate.

But for him to say to question him is to question the emperor of science, to question the almighty high priest of science is really something un-American, scary and worrisome that would elevate anybody to such a position. Do you think his power and newfound fame has gone to his head? Without question. And the thing is, is that he wants to maintain as if his only goals are altruistic and he wants to help people, but he's been unwilling to discuss the origins of this virus. He's been unwilling to discuss that he still is in favor of funding gain-of-function research where they create viruses that don't exist in nature, and that there's a great deal of evidence that this pandemic started in a lab in Wuhan. Because he's unwilling to even countenance that or have any discussion of that, he continues to support funding the lab in Wuhan. He continues to support funding gain-of-function He continues to support funding gain of function,

very dangerous research in our country. And there are many professors, many esteemed professors in the DNA world, in this microbiology world, who are worried that we could create a virus or one of these scientists could create a virus that could have 15% mortality or 50% mortality. And yet there's been no discussion of this because everybody is so beholden in Washington anyway to Fauci that I've been unable to have the Democrats commit to any hearing or any investigations on the origin of this virus. And that worries me because I think we could well have another pandemic worse than this come out of a lab. Yeah, he continues to wiggle on gain of function, even though his group admitted,

subsequent to his congressional testimony, that they did fund it through Peter Daszak's group, EcoHealth Alliance. He's basically hung up on the definition. He kind of tries to weasel out of it saying, well, the definition's not the same and you can revise it all you want, but we never funded, under my definition, what is gain of function? Here he was on the Sunday shows trying to say that's just a meaningless term. Soundbite two. Well, the intercept reporting is completely misleading because gain of function, maybe, is a completely meaningless term unless you put it into context. Years ago, we paused all function on manipulating viruses to set guardrails and guidelines and to get rid of the ambiguous and misleading term

of gain of function so that you could proceed with experiments if they fall within those guidelines. Then someone comes along and says, you know, I don't like that definition. And according to my definition, you did, quote, gain of function again. So meaning this term of gain of function, it doesn't mean anything. What do you make of that, Senator? You know, what's not disputed are the experiments that happened in Wuhan and that continue to happen in the United States as well. They take an unknown virus from a bat cave. They basically dig a bunch of guano from a bat cave, which is not a particularly enviable job.

They dig up the guano. They get viruses from it that are unknown. They then take the genes for those viruses or the S protein from those viruses, mix them together with the genes from a known virus. Well, one of the known viruses that they are using in Wuhan and other places is the SARS virus. This is a coronavirus from the 2004 era that had a 15% mortality. So they take a virus that we know has a 15% mortality and they mix it together with an unknown virus. The good thing about the SARS virus is it was deadly, but it was not very transmissible. They're mixing it with an unknown virus to see if it makes it more transmissible. Dr. Fauci's argument is, well, we don't know whether it'll be more transmissible or not, but that's precisely the reason for the experiment

is to see if they can create viruses and then ask the question, is it more transmissible? So the experiments in Wuhan did find viruses that are more transmissible, more lethal, more deadly, which gained in function. And yet he says, well, those experiments happened, but because we didn't know they would gain in function in advance, they're not gain of function. If that sounds like parsing of words, that's exactly what it is. It's him wiggling away from responsibility. He realizes now that 5 million people died and 5 million families are grieving from the loss of people who died from a virus. And if this virus came from a lab that he was funding, absolutely, he should be ridden out of town on a rail. That's the thing that's so infuriating about the whole thing is you're trying to sort of figure out what happened in that lab. What did we fund? What didn't we?

Should we be revising policy? Should we be holding people accountable? And he just keeps trying to, like a whack-a-mole, wiggle out from underneath your thumb saying, well, it wasn't technically gain of function. Well, we didn't really do what you said we did. But I think Josh Rogan of the Washington Post, he's written the definitive book on this. He's been a very objective reporter on it. He he put it in a way I think we can all understand, quote, Fauci and the NIH were collaborating on risky research with a Chinese lab that has zero transparency and zero accountability during a crisis. And no one in a position of power addressed that risk. Fauci's arguing the system worked. It didn't. And he went on to add the Wuhan lab took our money and know-how and built another secret part of the lab where they worked with the Chinese military. I mean, isn't that the point? Whatever you want to call it, that he can't deny that happened. And realize this isn't just partisan voices making this point. There's a professor from MIT. His name is Kevin Esvelt. He helped to develop

the CRISPR technology, which may someday cure things like hemophilia and other genetic diseases. He's a known scholar, a known scientist, not a partisan. He wrote in the Washington Post in an op-ed about a month ago and said that this type of research, this gain-of-function research that Dr. Fauci is denying, this type of research could threaten our very civilization. It's a risk we should not be taking. This is coming from nonpartisans. There's another Dr. Ebright from Rutgers, been saying the same thing for 15 years. We are endangering civilization as we know it to create viruses that don't exist in nature with the risk that they could be released, particularly in some of these labs that have been cited for

lack of safety in China. So this should not be a partisan issue. I cannot believe that there are not any Democrats in Congress who care about trying to prevent something like this from happening again. It's appalling. I've been fighting for six months for a hearing and I cannot get a committee hearing on any of this. They're influenced by people like Jimmy Kimmel. He was on the air the other night with this nonsense, but he speaks the way he says what many, many Democrats, including those in control right now, feel about Fauci, about you, about the push for information on this. Take a listen to this. He didn't ask for this. He's not a politician. He's a doctor. His interest is in protecting us from disease. What are the things he gets? He gets scumbags like Ted Cruz, like Rand Paul,

like that vile, inflatable Macy's parade balloon of dog Tucker Carlson making up lies. The reason they do it is so they can keep terrifying old people, which is basically what they do for a living. They scare senior citizens in order to get ratings and money and votes. But to do that, they need villains to scare grandma. They need fresh villains. So they zero in on this tiny, adorable, tired man who's done nothing but good for the world. And they make stuff up about him. They insinuate that he helped develop the virus in China. He's part of the deep state. He does cruel experiments on puppies. They will say anything to tear him down. They'd say he invented mosquitoes if people were dumb enough to believe it. And guess what? People are dumb enough to

believe it. Wow. Thoughts on that? Well, you know, there's an important debate that should be occurring in our country that Dr. Fauci has completely obscured and tried to brush under the rug. And that is the debate over whether natural immunity is an important part of the way that a country or a population fights a virus. We now have 50 million people have tested positive for COVID in our country, but even the CDC admits that there's at least two people for every one person we know about. So that's really 100, maybe 150 million people. Virtually half of the United States has had COVID. This is important because this is one way. You don't choose to get COVID, but if you've had it,

we should at least examine whether or not that immunity that you get from that is helpful. What we are finding is that the vaccines do help in preventing severity of the disease and death. And so if you're at high risk, I recommend taking them. But we should not also, we should acknowledge that the natural immunity exists because the thing is, is if your child has already had it, it makes no medical sense to give your child a COVID vaccine. Even if your child hasn't had it, the death rate for children is virtually zero. And we should examine evidence on the masks. We should look at Sweden. 1.8 million children in Sweden have been going to school for over a year and a half and no deaths. You say, well, what about the risk to their teachers? Well, the teachers have no higher incidence of getting the disease than any other occupation in Sweden. This is a great deal of evidence that what Dr. Fauci is putting out

as he is the science and that all the science, there should be a debate over masks. There should be a debate over who needs to be vaccinated. And there should be a debate over access to treatment. Have you ever heard Dr. Fauci talk about access to monoclonal antibodies? If he does, he says, oh, we want to make sure the deplorables don't get them, that too many people in Florida are using them, that we need to ration them. This is the real danger. He is not a disinterested sort of nation's doctor. He's a government bureaucrat that has always worked for government. And his first response to any problem is more government. So he isn't an objective source of information. And he's done a great deal to to go out on these Sunday shows and say how he really feels.

The business about I'm political. You know, let's talk about January 6th, Senator, which he said about Ted Cruz. I mean, things like that. He made a number of blatantly political comments. And you've been in the political game a long time, Senator. You tell me what that's going to do to the right half of the country to hear him going hard left. Well, this is sort of the problem with the establishment in Washington of both administrations recently. If you want people who are skeptical of getting a vaccine to get a vaccine, they'd be more likely to listen to a voice like mine and others who have a reasoned approach to this who are not anti-vaccine. Instead, they try to marginalize us. And I've

never had one phone call saying, would you help to encourage people to get vaccines? Because I will. For people at risk, and that's predominantly, but not exclusively, people over 65, but also anybody overweight, I recommend that they get the vaccine. And I've been recommending this all along. But in the next breath, I also tell people there is a treatment, monoclonal antibodies, you got to get it early, because Fauci has set the rules. And if you get into the hospital, they may not give you the treatment. So I've been willing to give these reasonable responses, but instead get vilified. But the more that Fauci obscures the truth, refuses to accept the truth, the more that he continues to promote that China is a reliable, reasonable who are like, oh, I have to impose a mask mandate or a vaccine mandate because, you know, the administration is going to make me.

And all those vaccine mandates are falling apart in the court. And Joe Biden comes out and tells us we need to wear masks. And even Fauci was suggesting we should potentially be masked forever. He was asked about that on the Sunday shows, too. And he basically said, yeah, I mean, we might be because look at the Chinese. That's what they do. Why wouldn't we do that? Well, because we're Americans and we believe in freedom of choice over here. But anyway, Joe Biden believes you should be in a mask and I should be in a mask, but doesn't apparently care whether he has to wear a mask.

Look at this video. He was in a mall, I guess, or in a store without a mask. And you can see the sign saying face coverings required while he's there with his mask pulled down underneath his chin. Peter Doocy of Fox News asked Jen Psaki about it. And listen to how that went. We saw the president shopping indoors on Saturday behind glass that says face covering required, but his face was uncovered. Why? The president is somebody who follows the recommendations and the advice of the CDC. I don't know what the circumstances were at that particular moment. He was shopping in a store and on the glass outside it said face covering required. And we could see him inside and his face was uncovered.

Well, again, Peter, our recommendation and advice continues to be for people to wear masks when they are required in establishments. I'm concerned that when the president says today, please wear your mask indoors in public settings around other people and he doesn't do that, that it's going to make it harder to get people to follow him? I think you see the American people and all of you see the president wearing a mask every time he comes out to an event, when he's sitting in meetings, and certainly he will continue to model behavior he hopes the American people will follow, not for his benefit, but to save their own lives and the lives of their friends and neighbors. Is he a hypocrite, Senator? Well, without question, and I think it's not just him.

You look throughout the left that's preaching that we all do this. Some of the most startling photos now are sort of a Hollywood elite, but around them, the servants, those serving their glasses and their champagne are all wearing masks, while the Hollywood elite don't. The pictures of Newsom dining and fine dining and not wearing a mask. But there's something even worse here because we haven't even, the hypocrisy is apparent, but we have so forbidden the discussion of whether they even work that we have ignored something. I believe that Dr. Fauci's advice on masks actually costs lives, that the misinformation that cloth masks work

actually might encourage you to engage in risky exposure to someone and get the disease when there are masks that work, you know, 10 times, maybe 100 times, maybe 1000 times better. So you can imagine a 75 year old person whose spouse has COVID. And if you take Dr. Fauci's advice, just wear your cloth mask, your cut up t-shirt, put a bandana on and go in and take care of your loved one. Well, if you're really at risk and you're 75 years old and you're going to take care of your spouse, you know, I think that's commendable. But really the advice should be to wear a mask that works. The N95 has a much better chance of working. You have to have a very tight seal. You can have no air going around the mask. Nobody wears a mask that way.

The doctors do and the nurses do in the COVID room. But by giving people bad advice, what we're doing is we're getting them all to submit and to the submission of lemmings, but we're not giving them good medical advice. We're actually giving them the wrong advice. Cloth masks, frankly, don't work. And actually, if you put this up, YouTube's going to take it down. I hope you're not on YouTube because they'll probably take it down because it's true. Cloth masks, frankly, don't work. And actually, if you put this up, YouTube's going to take it down. I hope you're not on YouTube because they'll probably take it down because it's true. Cloth masks do not work.

But even the administration's own advisor said that once he left, he admitted in a moment of unexpected clarity. They don't get taken down. Apparently, YouTube only cares if a Republican points out, one, that there are randomized controlled studies, a large one from Denmark, showing that half the people wore masks, half the people didn't wear masks. And guess what? The incidence of disease is about the same. In Florida, we have a large number of school districts. Half of them obeyed DeSantis, half of them disobeyed DeSantis' rule, and they had a mask comparison. Incidence of the disease, the same between the unmasked students and the masked students. So we should have a discussion of the science. Just to add to that, Senator, I mean, the CDC did its own study of 90,000 kids in Georgia months ago, and they found that masks had no discernible effect whatsoever that would benefit the children, none. They have in the New York Magazine reporter, David Zweig, he also writes for The Atlantic. He's been doing great reporting on this. So, you know, whatever you have your opinion on it. We've seen studies on it from the CDC. So whatever the truth is, the truth. I got to ask you this,

though, because in the end, what we need to do is is control some of these bureaucrats who are running around, you know, issuing these edicts that we then must follow. You could do that by winning the presidency and doing something about Dr. Fauci. But you tell me what could happen if the Republicans retake the House and or the Senate next year. You know, if we take over the Senate next year, I'll be chairman of the health committee and I pledge to use the subpoena power to get every last record about the origin of the virus, about Fauci, about all the studies, all that's coming forward. They've been sending us redacted copies when they send us anything at all. So we are going to get to the bottom of this if we're in charge. But there's an important philosophical thing that

has nothing to do or it has indirectly to do with partisan politics, but we should not centralize authority. I've told people I have an opinion. I support it with random peer review studied, and then we can have a debate. But I would never appoint myself to a position of dictatorship over what the truth is on medicine or science. That is the medieval church that did that, and that was a big mistake. Fauci sets himself up as the medieval church. We should never centralize the authority. I meet doctors every day who are afraid of their license being taken away from them or their board certification being taken away from them because they choose to treat COVID in a slightly different way than the government's

algorithm. It might mean they give monoclonal antibodies a little bit earlier or a little bit later. It might mean that they give inhaled steroids. God forbid, they might even use ivermectin. But the thing is, is we have always allowed this until recently, doctors, some discretion to figure out what's best for their patients. We should never centralize that. And that should be the real message of this, is that centralized control of medicine, it has the same ramifications, bad ramifications that it does when you centralize the authority over the economy. They're both bad news. I mean, I, for one, is somebody who am very anti these mandates, even though, you know, I got the vaccine. So did my husband. I appreciate you being out there fighting against it because it's so hard.

You know, like my kids, they have to go to school. If I don't put a mask on them, they won't take them. You know, it's we do we need people in power to fight against this authoritarian overreach. So I'm grateful to you, Senator Paul. Thank you for being here today. Thanks for having me. Up next, Miranda Devine. I'm so looking forward to this. She's brilliant. She writes for The New York Post. If you read nothing in The New York Post, you've got to read her because she's just her. The way she works her pen makes me feel like, yes, oh, my God, why couldn't I have said it like that? She's here to talk about the Bidens and the Cuomos and the laptop from hell. CNN has suspended its anchor, Chris Cuomo, indefinitely now, they say, after new documents showed he misled everybody about the extent to which he was involved in his brother's defense against sexual misconduct allegations that basically resulted in the end of his gubernatorial career.

Joining me now to discuss that and much, much more is Miranda Devine, New York Post columnist and author of the new book, Laptop from Hell, Hunter Biden, Big Tech, and the Dirty Secrets the President Tried to Hide. Love the title. Miranda, thank you so much for being here. So we'll get to the book in one sec, but let's start with Chris Cuomo. So they're saying he's suspended indefinitely because they feel misled about the extent to which he was involved in advising his brother. At first, I thought to myself, oh, they knew what he was doing. But you know, when I took a closer look at what Chris Cuomo, how he described what he had done, and then what the newly released documents from the New York State AG Letitia James show, there is a stark difference between what he admitted to and what he was really doing.

Your thoughts on it? Thanks, Megan. I'm really thrilled to be with you. Look, I think the Chris Cuomo story just speaks for itself. The documents there show that he misled the viewers. He misled CNN about his involvement with his brother. No one would really blame a brother for wanting to help out when he's in trouble, but he went far and beyond anything that was appropriate or ethical by using, it appears, his journalistic contacts and sources to find out information that would be damaging to the women who were coming out against his brother

and accusing him of sexual harassment. So, I mean, that's really journalistic malpractice. And I guess it's not really a surprise considering how incredibly callous the pair of them were. I know, I mean, your friend Janice Dean on Fox News lost her in-laws and she speaks about the devastation that they were feeling at the very time that the Cuomo brothers were having this comedy routine on air. You know, if anyone knew how many people were dying and why they were dying in nursing homes, it was Andrew Cuomo. And so it takes a really special kind of sociopathy to be able to lock it up on television when you're responsible for so many deaths. Janice Dean, she started speaking out about it saying, you issued this order, it resulted in the death of, now we know, 15 plus thousand people in the New York State nursing homes.

She started to say, I'm upset and my husband's parents are now dead. And Governor Andrew Cuomo's office attacked her. They attacked her as just the meteorologist and she's not an expert in anything but the weather. Well, she still got her job and Andrew Cuomo doesn't. Now it appears Chris Cuomo may have lost his. And she said that that moment when Andrew went on Chris's show, Chris Cuomo took out the big Q-tip, ha ha ha, joking around. Oh, this is what you'd need for a COVID test with your nose, was the moment that did it for her, like the the cavalier callousness, the sort of, you know, promoting his brother. And one of Chris Cuomo's times between March 19th and June 24th, 2020. As of May, which last time I checked is before June, Andrew Cuomo was taking fire for the nursing home story. I just pulled up just one before we got on the air. The Guardian had a piece May 26 talking about how he had granted liability to nursing home and hospital execs for the way they dealt with COVID patients. And the critics said, this proves that you're basically allowing corners to be cut when it comes to the care of seniors. And he'd already issued the order mandating that the COVID positive patients go into the nursing home. Anyway, none of that was discussed. But the other thing I wanted

to ask you about is, he says specifically to the audience, to CNN, I'm not an advisor. I'm a brother. But now we're seeing these documents, Miranda. He is an advisor. He's out there saying, please let me help with his preparation before he goes forward with his interview with the AG. Call me, he says to Cuomo's top aide. I have a lead on the wedding girl, one of his accusers. This is Chris Cuomo um melissa derosa this top aide says rumors are going around from politico one to two more people coming out tomorrow can you check your sources chris cuomo on it text back no one's heard that yet looked into whether ronan farrow was about to move on a source reported back on that and then here's the most egregious one he said uh in his

testimony to letitia jane to letitia Jane's. I would never do oppo research on anybody alleging anything like this. I'm not in the oppo research business. And then another one of Andrew Cuomo's aides, Liz Smith, Lee Smith testified. Chris Cuomo sent e-messages to us about one of the accusers, Charlotte Bennett, and forwarded tweets from her. Apparently, he dug up during her college years to the governor's advisors. What's that? That's not oppo research. He lied over and over to cover his brother's butt and then his. Yeah, it's so egregious. That's a litany of real journalistic malpractice is the only way I can put it. It's unethical and it's dishonest

and it's something that really shames CNN. I mean, I guess it's not surprising, but the fact that CNN has, you know, indefinitely suspended him, presumably on full pay, and presumably they'll just wait until the heat dies down, if it does, and bring him back, just as they did with Jeffrey Toobin. So the only light at the end of the tunnel is that CNN is under new management, and there was some indication

the other day that they want the network to go back to doing proper journalism as it used to. CNN is not what it used to be. You know, when it started, it was this magnificent 24-hour news cable operation, a real groundbreaking. They covered, you know, the first Iraq war and did some magnificent reporting. But it's just sort of degenerated into this very ugly sort of opinion fest and very sloppy reporting. And the viewers have just, viewerships collapsed as a result. That's right. I mean, Jeff Zucker is still running the actual entity, CNN, but above him, there's been a shift in ownership and management and ultimately control. Charlotte Bennett, the woman who Chris Cuomo was digging up dirt on, issued a statement saying in part, CNN must immediately take action.

They're saying they're going to investigate. She said the network need not investigate his behavior. The investigation is over. And yesterday we received answers just like his older brother. Chris Cuomo used his time, network and resources to help smear victims, dig up opposition research and belittle our credible allegations. His behavior is reprehensible, unprofessional and inexcusable. She says anything short of firing Chris Cuomo reflects a network lacking both morals and a backbone. This is how Chris Cuomo, who we now know was digging up dirt on Charlotte Bennett, among others, Wedding Girl and on and on it went, criticizing Lindsey Boylan, one of the other accusers. This is how he portrayed himself, Miranda, when the scandal broke on the air. This is soundbite eight. I'm aware of what's going on with my brother. And obviously, I cannot cover it because he is my brother. Now, of course, CNN has to cover it. They have covered it extensively, and they will continue to do so. I have always cared very deeply about these issues and profoundly so.

Profoundly cares about sexual harassment while he digs up dirt. He's broken trust and faith with his audience, his staff. He's embarrassed CNN. And I agree with Charlotte Bennett. From the moment he did his fake exit from his basement while he was parading all around the Hamptons having COVID and pretending he wasn't, right? To his weird muscle building routines that he does all the time

at Post Online Bazaar. To the harassment of Shelley Ross, which came out, which he doesn't deny happened before CNN, but it happened. She went on the record. He humiliated her. to the forcing out of another

executive producer of his who was female because of his bully tactics something cnn has not denied to now this the interviewing of his brother the lack of journalistic integrity the lies about there being no scandal when he was doing it the lies about whether he was an advisor the lies about i would never do oppo he's done he. He's done. He's told more lies than Brian Williams ever did. And he needs to be out on his ear, if you ask me. Well, yeah, I agree. And I mean, the insincerity of his public proclamations, I think, really tells his audience what he thinks of them. He thinks they're all chumps and people to be, you know, tricked and lied to.

And I just think it's untenable. I mean, whether CNN wants to get rid of him or not, I just can't see even the CNN audience being able to forgive that kind of dishonesty. And, look, his brother's gone down in flames and he's dragging everyone else down around him. And the Democratic Party doesn't show any inclination to protect Andrew Cuomo because he's no longer any use to them. He was useful to them during the

Trump administration because he acted as the foil, the guy who was doing a really good job of COVID. And of course, it was the opposite. He was doing a terrible job with COVID. New York has one of the worst, the second worst per capita death rate of any state, second only to New Jersey, where Phil Murphy also did the same horrendous order with nursing homes, forcing them to take in COVID-positive patients. So, look, I think it's karma. Everybody who supported Andrew Cuomo is getting their comeuppance as they should, because this was a matter of life or death. And you know, the approval ratings of Andrew Cuomo and the pass he got for so long on the

deadly orders he was issuing are also in fact, in part attributable to CNN's malfeasance and Chris Cuomo's yuckity mucky whatever interviews with his brother, which gave him the halo, which allowed him to, you know, just I'm this avuncular, enjoyable, sweet guy just doing the best I can. Meanwhile, people like Janice Dean's in-laws were dying unnecessarily in these nursing homes where the most vulnerable patients were, which never should have been required to take COVID positive patients. And he comes out yesterday, Chris Cuomo, and said, I think it was on his Sirius show. He's on Sirius too. You know why Andrew Cuomo went down? He went down because the media didn't support him. Ultimately, Miranda, you lived along with me. They idolized him. They gave him a pass on everything

until women like Janice dragged them kicking and screaming to the nursing home story. Yes. And look, he was the anti-Trump, so he could do no wrong. And they put him up on a pedestal. And they've done the same thing with

Anthony Fauci. It's quite obscene that the people who have been sanctified during the pandemic are actually the people who have done the most harm to the American people. You are not wrong about that. All right, looking forward to turning the page and talking about your new book right after this, The Laptop from Hell. And she has done her homework on Hunter and Joe Biden right after this. And remember, folks, you can find The Megyn Kelly Show live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111 every weekday at noon east. And the full video showing clips when you subscribe to my YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly. Do me a favor, go subscribe now, and then we will see whether YouTube suppresses my interview with Rand Paul. And let's stay in touch on it, right? Go there now,

subscribe so you can let me know. And if you prefer an audio podcast, you just want to share the show with somebody you love, go ahead and subscribe and download Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you leave me a review over on Apple, I will read it. And by the way, there you're going to find our full archives with more than 210 shows, including with Janice Dean a couple of times, who has been righteously celebrating the downfall of the Cuomos. Back with me now, Miranda Devine, New York Post columnist and author of the new book, Laptop from Hell, Hunter Biden, Big Tech and the Dirty Secrets the President Tried to Hide. So great, great idea, right? Because it was the Post that really got shut down on its reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop, all of which we now know was right and never should have been

suppressed right before the presidential election. So first of all, all of which we now know was right and never should have been suppressed, are right before the presidential election. So first of all, one of the things you take a look at is how that laptop wound up in the media and how it wound up made me, I wrote this in my notes, Miranda, the Biden children are very forgetful. Tell us. Well, Hunter Biden, this is one of three laptops that we know of that he's mislaid or abandoned. And this one, in April of 2019, he dropped off at his local Mac repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware. And it was waterlogged. And John Paul Mac Isaac, who owns the shop, said that he would fix it. It was actually unsalvageable, but he would upload all the information onto his server and then he could download it onto a hard drive. So he called Hunter and he said, can you bring in a hard drive?

Hunter brought in the little hard drive and he said, all right, well, I'll call you when I've done it. And Hunter never came back. John Paul MacIsaac tried to call him several times using the phone number, which we verified was Hunter Biden's phone number, his signature on the form. And he just never came back. And he had an $85 bill he never paid. So after three months, that laptop became the property of John Paul MacIsaac. And he did nothing with it for a while, but he had had to spend a lot of time looking at the material on it because it took so long to upload onto his server. And so he

recognised some words and some keywords and documents. And when he saw the impeachment process going on with Donald Trump, he's a Trump supporter, which, you know, people have used against him, but, I mean, he just is. And he was watching that and he saw all this talk about Burisma, this corrupt Ukrainian energy company, and he recognised that from the material on the laptop. And so he thought that it might be important and he was a bit concerned.

So he called the FBI, which is what law-abiding people do. They took their time but finally came along and picked up the laptop. And he had a copy, of course, of all the material on his server. He made a copy for his own protection, he said. And when nothing came of, you know, any investigation from the FBI, this is December 2019, he ended up contacting several Republican congressmen. Jim Jordan was one of them.

He just got no response. And finally he saw Rudy Giuliani on television and decided he'd try him. So he tried, found an email address, which actually was for Rudy Giuliani's lawyer, Bob Costello, sent him this email, which was very thorough, very well written, and expressed fear for his own safety, because he knows that the Bidens controlled Delaware. And he was worried and wanted to make sure that somebody, you know, on his side, I guess, someone who understood about the material in the laptop and how important it was, would also be able to have it so that it didn't just disappear if he disappeared. And he also sent a copy to a friend and said to him,

hold on to this, don't open it unless something happens to me. So that's how explosive the material was and how this just humble laptop repairer just felt really quite concerned. And so Bob Costello, to his great credit, his job at that point was to go through the voluminous emails that came through for Rudy Giuliani and a lot of nutty ones, but he found this, he thought it was credible. And he contacted John Paul Mac Isaac, got him to Federal Express, a copy of the hard drive to his home, and he went through it. Well, the thing I found funny about it is Ashley Biden, you know, apparently, I think, misplaced her diary. Hunter Biden misplaces his laptop. All of them appear to have very damaging, embarrassing information on Joe Biden. Now that he's president, the FBI is finally interested in protecting him from what's in that diary and his threat to James O'Keefe and the people to whom it was given. Okay, so what, you know, we learned about Burisma and

this Ukrainian company paying Hunter Biden all this money every month for nothing. It was basically paid for access to Joe Biden. And then he had links with the Chinese too. And some discussions about getting 10% for quote, the big guy, if you were to strike a deal with the Chinese, meaning Joe Biden. What is new in there about what Joe Biden and Hunter Biden or either one of them was doing with respect to foreign entities for money? Well, I think that the the Chinese grift is probably the most significant in terms of America's national interest. And what we know from the laptop material, but also from Tony Bobulinski, I also have all his contents of his phones, numerous WhatsApp messages and documents because he was one of Undivided's business partners

in putting together this deal with this Chinese energy company, CEFC, which is not just a Chinese energy company. This is the capitalist arm of President Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative. This was the pointy end of China's imperialist reach across the world. And for the last two years of Joe Biden's vice presidency, there is evidence on the laptop and from Tony Bobulinski's material, which shows that the Bidens were doing work for CEFC around the world, stitching together deals using Joe Biden's name and his influence to make money. Now, they were not to be paid until after Joe Biden left office, at which time he and Hunter were going to set up

an office together in Washington, in Georgetown, with their nameplate on the door, CEFC America. And Joe Biden met with Tony Bobulinski in Los Angeles to vet him as CEO of this new joint venture with CEFC. Now, the joint venture that Hunter Biden told CEFC that they owed his family $20 million for the work they'd already done for the previous two years while Joe was vice president. So much is made of Joe Biden having left office by the time he met Tony Bobulinski, which is correct, but we know that they were already doing work for CEFC. And we also know that Hunter Biden and Jim Biden got tens of millions of dollars from CEFC and would have got a lot more except that the whole thing fell over. of winding up all these Chinese businesses that were, you know, pirating American intellectual property and preying on America. If you weren't worried about the behavior that happened, you know, after he was vice

president, think about what's happening now, right? What this means about Hunter while his dad is president and certainly in the future. We're up against a hard break, so I got to wrap it. Miranda, I recommend everybody, everybody read it. Laptop from Hell and read Miranda and the New York Post. Well worth your time. Great to see you. Up next, COVID. Two docs. COVID's in the news as always today. We've got new variants, new COVID pills, new boosters, and new high-profile breakthrough cases like LeBron James. Joining us now to discuss it all, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor of health policy at Stanford University and Dr. David Dowdy, infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

And our experts in just a bit are going to be taking your calls, too, on COVID. Call me. Call me now with your questions for the docs at 833-44-MEGAN, M-E-G-Y-N. That's 833-446-3496. Welcome Jay and David. Great to have you guys. Okay. So let's, let's kick it off. Omicron. So hard to say. We should have come up with one that was easier. Am I the only one who's desperate to say Omicron? I was desperate to say Omicron. Anyway, it's Omicron. So forgive me if I mess it up. But I mean, you I'll start with you on this, David, because I haven't talked to you yet. But I'm very interested. What I hear from the WHO is it may be more transmissible from near from early an early look at it, but they don't know. But there's absolutely no reason right now,

no factual evidence, no cases to believe it's any more deadly or dangerous than any other variant. Is that correct? Yeah, that's exactly right, Megan. I think that the primary result there is we don't know yet. It's going to be probably another week or two before we have any definitive data on transmissibility, virulence, etc. So we're still in a bit of a waiting game. A lot of press has gotten out about this new variant, but it's not clear yet just how big of a problem this is going to be. When they say, you know, mild so far, Jay, you know, they're saying there haven't been that many cases, but the cases are seeing in the South African countries that there no need in oxygen, no needed hospitalization, no one died. So that's all very reassuring. They're saying these are mild cases. They don't understand the freak out like the national freak

out. But at the same time, they're saying there were between 30 and 50 mutations, many around the spike protein of the coronavirus. And that's why other doctors, I guess, outside of South Africa are saying that's what's making us nervous. So do they have reason right now, in your view, to be nervous? I mean, I think if you look at it theoretically, a mutation could either help or hurt. It's not automatic that a mutation is going to necessarily make the virus more or less dangerous. It's an empirical question. I think part of the reason why some people, some biologists, are getting scared is just because if there's more mutations, then they're thinking just one step further that the antibodies produced by or the immune response produced by the vaccine, which are focused on the spike

protein, might not be as effective. That's the theory. Whether in practice actually results in being less effective is an empirical question. And I completely agree with David. It is something that we should wait and see. There's absolutely no reason to panic. And the data we have so far empirically suggests that it's not more severe. So I counsel, let's just wait. I mean, it's something worth watching, but it is certainly not worth

this enormous news cycle which is inducing panic. So David, I saw you saying if it's got 30 mutations, then it had 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, all the way through 29 mutations. Then there was no panic and there was no alarm sounding and everyone went about their business. We didn't see some huge spike in deaths. I mean, that seems to me to be an important point. How long must this variant have been around if it's already on its 30th mutation? Yeah, I think this is a good question. And I think part of the reason people weren't freaking out when this variant had 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 is that we didn't see it when it was going through all that evolution. So it's just coming to people's attention at this time.

And whether that's because this has been a variant that's been circulating where we're not really looking all that closely, like in other countries in Africa, or whether it was in a small number of patients who were sick for a very long time and allowed the virus to mutate, we don't really know. It's something that it looks like it's more closely related to some of the variants that were here before Delta than to Delta itself. So this is something that's been circulating somewhere for a while. But I think one important thing for people to realize is that wherever it was circulating,

whether it was in places we weren't looking or in people who we didn't know about, it's very unlikely that it's seen a lot of the vaccine. Most places where we've been looking for variants are the places where there's been a fair amount of vaccination. So this is a virus that hasn't seen the vaccine very much, meaning it probably hasn't had, I mean, there's no reason to think it would be trying to evade the vaccine through a mutation, so to speak. And so I think it's important for us to be looking at this. And I think all of the vaccine manufacturers are testing right now to see how effective these vaccines are going to be. But until we have evidence that this is a variant that can really survive in a place where a lot of people have been vaccinated, I just don't think we need to be panicking at this stage.

So the three questions that we look at when there's a new variant are, is it more easily transmitted? Is it more likely to cause death or severe disease? And is it likely to evade the vaccines, right? Like those are the three things that we look at. And it looks like maybe is the answer to number one, maybe more transmissible than some of the other, although Delta was pretty transmissible, I don't know, maybe. So far, no evidence, though it could change, that it's more likely to cause hospitalization or serious effects or death. And we don't know about the vaccines because most of the people in the South African countries do not have the vaccine, unlike us. Whereas, I don't know if this is right, the latest stats I just read were 60% of adults in America are fully vaccinated, 70 plus percent

have had at least one shot. But those are big, big numbers. So Jay, how do we find out? They say, what do they need? Two weeks from the date the scientists first got the alert from the South African authorities, two weeks for the vaccine companies to see on question three, whether they're vaccine resistant? I mean, I think part of the thing is it might actually take longer. The reason is this, that the vaccine companies, what they're looking at is antibody responses. That's something you can check in very quickly in vitro and so on. What you can't check is the broader protection provided by the vaccine and also people who are covered recovered they get very very broad protection um from covert recovery uh that's harder to check in in in a very fast time but what you need is empirical evidence of what the the virus actually does in the real world to really

know um and that'll take a little bit longer um but you know it will start to see it i mean i mean i think uh uh now that we know to look for it, we'll track this variant. That's what happened with the Delta variant. And David is right. I think it's quite widespread before even it was found in South Africa. I think now it's been found in Belgium, in Canada, in Scotland, in, you know, just a whole bunch of places around the world. They said 15 countries.

Yeah. And, you know, it's very likely already in the U. They said 15 countries. Yeah. And it's very likely already in the US as well. So I think now that we know what to look for, we can look and then do empirical studies to see if it is more severe and if it does evade. It seems really unlikely, just from a first principle point of view, because it's still the same virus with a few mutations. The other variants have not escaped national immunity, have not escaped national immunity, have not escaped vaccine immunity in terms of protection against severe disease. And that's something that we should tell the public. This is not something to panic about. We have many tools

to address this, and we're in the process of developing new ones. This is something that people should not go back into, oh, no, it's March 2020 again. I think that's irresponsible rhetoric. David, why do you think that there was such a reaction to this, countries closing their borders like Israel? You know, we instituted a travel ban, so many countries did. The New York governor saying all elective surgeries must be canceled. I mean, my God, you would have thought, you know, the death rate on this variant had already been pronounced at 50%. Like the way people reacted, it was stunning. And that got everybody's attention.

Yeah, well, we've gotten to a point, I think, where the word variant is just something that induces fear and panic in our population. And I think that's a real problem because we're going to be seeing new variants of this virus. We see new variants of the flu every year. But yet people have associated new variant with massive wave of death. And I think that that's the problem is that there's this link in people's mind between new variant and next big wave. And it's hard to fault people for reacting as humans do. I mean, everyone was buying toilet paper at the beginning of this pandemic. But I think we as scientists, as the media, as leaders of the world, etc., we need to be messaging this in a way that does not cause people to have that kind of panic. And maybe we need a new word, but variant has become linked in the public mind with fear and panic. And so I think we just need to find a way to

move away from that because this is not going to be the last variant that we see. Right. I mean, I think that's certainly true on sort of the political left in this country. I think the political right is more like, all right, there's a new variant. I'm going to continue living my life and doing the things that I think make sense to protect me and my family. I don't know if you can get people off of the need for sort of, forgive the term, but fear porn. You can see it in areas outside of COVID too. Some people naturally gravitate toward it. There's something about being afraid that is oddly attractive to them. And then you have media and irresponsible public health messaging that torques it up, plays into it and torques it up. I think I'm just sort of reasonable. I just feel like if I need to be worried, okay, walk me through why I need to be worried. I'm not really a worrier

in general, but if there's cause for concern that I need to take precautions for, I'll do it. I just don't see it yet. I'm listening. But I'll tell you this, Jay. One of my first thoughts on it was something you've been saying for a long time, which is why don't we focus more on vaccinating people in other countries rather than like the obsessive, you know, like everyone here has got to get another stick. Now you need three sticks, three, three jabs. Why don't we do more to get the people in the South African countries at least one dose of the vaccines? This is one of the things the

World Health Organization actually has gotten right. They've been pushing for this for a very long time. Vaccinating the world, especially the older people around the world who are very vulnerable if they get infected, is priority one. The first vaccine dose is much more protective on the margin than the third. And so I don't really understand. And I think, I mean, I guess I kind of do. It's a result of this panic and fear. Everyone wants control. And we live in a rich country where we can afford to get the third dose.

We can afford to worry about vaccinating five-year-olds or whatever. When, in fact, if you want to save lives, the thing you know, five-year-olds or whatever. When in fact, the most, if you want to save lives, the thing you should do is vaccinate the world, vaccinate older people around the world who do not have the vaccine at all. If you really, that's what your primary concern is. And I think, you know, Megan, to get back to your point about fear, which I think is a really important one, I don't actually think it's simply left, right. I mean, like in the UK, there's this massive panic and you have a right-wing government. You have, I think part of it is actually a class thing.

I think a certain class of people have actually benefited from the lockdowns. It's people, it's actually, frankly, it's people like me. I mean, I've been able to keep my job, maybe just barely. I don't know. I'm sure Stanford's not very happy with me. But I mean, I haven't like actually suffered. Whereas so many people, the essential workers, if you will,

they've suffered through the pandemic. They've been working. And for certain class of people, the variants renew the call for like, oh, we should be panicked. We should be locked down. We should do these things that have kept us safe. But it's only kept a certain class of people safe, not everybody safe.

So I think, and unfortunately, I think the media reflects that class much more than it ought. It ought to be reflecting regular people. But this panic, I think, feeds into the neuroses of that class. You know, I heard a discussion this morning on, listen to The New York Times podcast, The Daily, and I like to get my info from the left and the right. And they had they had an interesting discussion about why these South African countries, why why did this new attention getting variant come up there? And they were talking about how the virus could have mutated 30 times. It would have had to be, they thought, in an immunocompromised patient. So what are your thoughts on that, David? Why South Africa? And should we, as a result of

whatever the answer is, be prioritizing that issue in whatever country for our next doses of vaccines. Yeah, I mean, I think the question of why this would first be picked up in a place like South Africa is a really interesting one. And I think that the idea that this might have been in one or more immunocompromised patients that were able to kind of keep the virus just at enough level to keep it replicating, but without, you know, killing them, I think is a reasonable one. South Africa also has a much better surveillance system than any other country in the southern part of the African continent. And so, you know, part of the reason we're seeing it in South Africa is because that's where we had the best eyes, and that's where we were looking. But it's also interesting that this happened in a place where transmission was actually quite low. If you look at the number of cases in South Africa a few weeks

ago, as compared to the US, even on a per capita basis, it was less than a tenth of what we have here. And the more transmission you have, the more mutation you would expect to be occurring. So it's also quite possible that what's happening here is that this was a variant that was randomly associated with a particular outbreak in South Africa where we were able to see it. And when those outbreaks start, they tend to spread a little bit, right? And we're seeing that it's been picked up in travelers throughout the world. But we're not actually seeing, at least not yet, evidence of a lot of ongoing transmission in those new countries.

And so it's possible that this was seen just because, you know, this is one place where a small outbreak could have a big influence. And we had good eyes on the ground looking at this. And then we decided to punish the country for self-reporting. Do either one of you guys support the travel ban no i think it's xenophobic nonsense i think it i think it uh it's as we've been discussing it's probably likely already here if it's if it's uh and uh the travel ban is not going to have any marginal benefit as far as stopping this thing from spreading what it will do is it'll it'll make the lives of many, many people miserable for no good purpose.

And frankly, it's xenophobic. Like the countries in Europe that have this variant that have now been detected, and we are only focusing our travel ban on African countries, and especially the places that have looked, just like David said, they have these capacity to look. It makes no sense as policy. It makes no sense as public health. It is an enormous mistake, I think. Did you support the travel ban from China, Jay? I don't remember that. I didn't. I mean, I wasn't on Twitter then. And frankly, I wasn't a Twitter, like a COVID celebrity then. But I mean, I generally think the travel bans are a bad approach to this.

And I wouldn't have supported it back then either. I didn't support it back then. All right, just slow your roll, Jay, right? Because like, you know, Dr. Fauci, we'll get to his God complex in a little bit. COVID celebrity king. Dave, go ahead. Your thoughts on the travel ban.

Oh, well, I'm no COVID celebrity, so I can still speak freely. But I think I agree with Jay 100%. I mean, the thing for people to realize is that even the best surveillance system for these variants is going to be two or more weeks behind when infections actually are occurring. And so by the time we're able to implement any sort of travel ban, this variant has already gone throughout the world. And that doesn't mean that we need to be scared of it. It doesn't mean, this is not the same as at the very beginning of this pandemic when you have a single place that is where this virus is, for example. This is a virus that is already in every country of the world. We've all seen, like every population has seen this virus. There is immunity based on vaccination and on previous

infection in every country in the world. And so just because it has a lot of mutations doesn't mean that that immunity is worthless. So this is not like a brand new something we've never seen before. And it's not like it's something that we can contain given our current systems. So I'll say I agree with Jay. Up next, we're going to talk about boosters and therapeutics because Fauci's been saying, get a booster. This is the perfect reason to go get a booster. So do our doctors agree with that? And they also say Pfizer is saying it would take about 100 days to come up with a vaccine that would attack this variant in particular.

So if you're thinking about a booster, should you wait? Right. We're going to ask them that. And then the doctor is going to take your questions on COVID. What do you want to know about the new variant, about boosters, about anything? Call me. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Dr. David Dowdy are here to discuss all things COVID. And you're up too. Give us a call because the doctors are taking your phone calls. The doctor is in. Call me at 833-44-MEGAN, M-E-G-Y-N, 833-446-3496.

Because you're going to take a call right now, Docs. We'll start with Kent in Indiana, who's got a question for you about the kids. Go ahead, Kent. Hi, Megan. How are you doing today? Great, thanks. Yeah, I'm just really confused as far as getting conflicting information on children and the risk children have with COVID-19. And that's about it? All right, so the risks that they have, right? And that is one of those

things. You watch MSNBC, you're like, oh my God, how soon can I stick the needle in my two year old? And you watch Fox and you're like, never. I'm fine. I don't kids is orders of magnitude less than the risk to adults from getting infected. A thousandfold difference or more in the risk of mortality from getting infected for older adults, especially older adults versus kids. Just to give some sense, the estimates of the infection fatality rates from around the world for infection in kids is something like 99.999 plus percent survival for kids under the age of 11. So the disease is not nearly as deadly as is reported for kids. It's in fact orders of magnitude less deadly for kids. More kids died of the flu in typical flu seasons than have died as far as the rate of death given infection. Kids face far greater risk from many, many, many, many other things. That's the first order thing. So to my thinking about whether kids should get the vaccine, you should balance the

benefit versus the potential harm. To date, the evidence shows that the vaccine seemed pretty safe in kids. I don't see any evidence in the trials that make me particularly worried about kids. I do worry a little bit about myocarditis risk in boys, given that in young men, myocarditis risk is elevated, but COVID also caused myocarditis.

And I think there may be kids that have immune deficiencies or other conditions that make them benefit more from the vaccines. So I think where I come down is there should be an individual choice that's made between the pediatrician and the parent. There should not be coercion in this at all. And I think it is completely reasonable for a parent to decide, well, my kid is not at high risk and I don't want to face the potential long-term effects that we don't know about yet from the vaccine and come down against. I can also completely understand a parent who says, look, I'm worried about this and it's safe and I want to just do it.

Jay, would you get your kid vaccinated if he had COVID already? Me? No, I wouldn't. No, you wouldn't. Okay. Because he doesn't need it? Because there's an increased risk? The marginal benefit is really low. And there's some potential.

Like I said, it's for safe so far. There's some potential for harm on balance. Why? Dave, what do you make of Fauci's push for this is the time for the booster shot? I'm somebody who has a double vax, not a triple, did not get the booster, did not think I needed it. I'm only 51 years old. I'm in perfectly good health. Don't have any comorbidities. So what's your thought on go get your booster right now? Yeah, I mean, well, and also just to speak to the risk in kids,

I would say it's I would I would portray this as like getting a flu shot, right? I mean, like in kids COVID is about as dangerous as a flu. The shot is still very safe. We give people, uh, we give kids flu shots. We don't, you know, coerce every kid to, to get a flu shot. Um, so, but as far as, um, boosters, this is timely because, uh have my appointment to get my booster in about an hour. And I was vaccinated back in February. So I think on balance, if you haven't gotten a booster and it's been more than six to eight months since you got your first series. On balance, I think the boosters probably do provide more benefit than harm. We don't know that that's a long-term benefit. You don't think we should wait until Omicron is better understood and maybe Pfizer is going to

give a different vaccine? My personal expectation, though I hesitate to tell the future, is that this is going to become a virus like the flu that is worse in the wintertime. And so I feel like I'll get my extra benefit for the next couple of months during the peak season. And this is when, when it was worst last year. And, and so, but, but do I feel really strongly about this? No, I think that the priority still needs to be what we were discussing earlier. So getting vaccines out to everyone who hasn't been vaccinated, at least adults. The first shot is the most important, not not the third. Let me get in a few more callers because the board is lighting up. They want to talk to you guys. Angie in Florida has such respect for you. I love you. Thank you. And on a side note, it's interesting, the Omicron, which is like, you know, seems to

be a lot of hype for a mild case of the COVID. If you unscramble those letters, it ironically comes out as moronic. Thought you'd think that was cute. My second, my point and question is I had COVID and as did my husband. And are we safe with our natural antibodies from having the COVID to where we wouldn't need or benefit as much from the vaccine as folks who maybe haven't had it? Jay? The answer is yes. The answer is absolutely yes. The evidence at this point is overwhelming that COVID recovery provides long and durable immunity against future reinfection. Just to give a couple of data points, there was a study that was just published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Qatar, showed that people who recovered from COVID a year ago, the likelihood of severe disease on reinfection was orders of magnitude less than people who had never had COVID and never had the vaccine. And in fact, the protection was stronger than the vaccine in an Israeli study. And in fact, even the likelihood

of reinfection is quite low in a whole series of cohort studies around the world. But what the data show is that there is a somewhere between a 0.3% and a 1% risk of reinfection at one year if you have had COVID and recovered. That's stronger protection than the vaccine. So I don't think that it's wise to, it's not, I mean, I think it may be the case that the vaccine provides some marginal benefit on top of the protection you already have, but it's going to be much, much, much, much smaller than the benefit provided by, you know, to people who've never been infected, never recovered, never had the vaccine before. Do you agree with that, David?

You know, I'm going to agree and disagree, I think. I think that everything that Jay has said is correct. I do think that there is some evidence that if you have been infected, that getting the vaccine provides additional benefit against getting reinfected. So again, is this as critical as getting that first vaccine series if you've never been infected? No, you certainly have some level of protection. I think one thing is to make sure that you actually were tested positive against COVID. I mean, some people think that they had COVID, but they didn't, right? And so I think that's an important consideration. If you've tested positive, I think you do have a strong level of protection. I still think that the vaccines are very safe and probably provide additional benefit.

And I would say on balance, the risk benefit ratio is probably still favorable, but I would not fault a decision to not get the vaccine. Let me ask you this follow up. OK, this is a hypothetical. So here we are in December of 2021. Let's say neither one of us has had the vaccine, and neither one of us has had COVID. And we're trying to, we know in the next year, one of those two things is going to happen, right? Like you could choose, you either get COVID, or you get the vaccine, and forget, and you live through COVID. And let's say you have

very little symptoms, and it's not a thing for you. In one year from now, 12 months from now, if I got the vaccine and you just got COVID, which one of us would be better off in terms of not getting it again? So I think the first response to that is nobody knows for sure that they're going to be the person who gets the mild case of COVID, right? No, I so i'm pro vax i'm not trying to make an argument anti-vax but i am like aren't you like if you get a decent case of covid and you're pretty close to having gotten over it you're aren't you better off than somebody who never had it and is double vaxed um i would say to my mind probably yes i think there has been some um some mixed evidence as to which is is stronger i think jay is citing the the best evidence uh in favor of the the

previous infection the israeli study yeah um but 27 times protection yeah exactly okay um so let me pause you i get it you. You've got you've got a nuanced view of it, but I want to get in a couple more and a couple more calls. Let's see. Yes. Oh, OK. Let's see. Braun in Kansas is going to bring up the dreaded I wordword. Hi, Bron. What's your question? The dreaded I-word. Okay. Well, hey, Megan. Thanks for taking my call. Hey, my question is, so we all know eventually we're all going to get COVID in some fashion, either a little bit or severe. I know there's therapeutics out there that's been used for over a year. There's studies saying that ivermectin seems to have some positive effects. I've seen, you know, like four of my friends, they kind of went downhill pretty quick with COVID confirmed. And they eventually reluctantly took some ivermectin. And within a day, they started getting better. And they could attribute them getting better because they did the ivermectin.

I'm just looking for the doctors to say, is there any validity to this? Good question. Who wants to take that one, Jay? I'll take that one, and I'll convey some uncertainty. There are something like 30 randomized trials on ivermectin. Many of them find good results, and some of them find nothing. The literature on this is deeply divided. There are folks who've gone through these trials carefully and think that the ones that have positive results are low quality trials and the ones that have negative results are high quality trials. So the answer is I don't yet know

if it works or not. I know there are many people who swear by it, but I personally am not yet convinced. What I do know is that it is a scandal that I don't know. We should have had a very high quality trial done in the United States in 2020 with ivermectin. There were hypotheses out there in 2020 that this was a potentially effective agent. We have a trial, actually, that the NIH is funding called ACTIV-6 that's due to be completed in March 2023. 2023. There is absolutely no good reason for us not to have put as much effort into development of early therapeutics, especially cheap early therapeutics, as we put into the development

of the vaccine from the very earliest days of the epidemic. And I do not understand why the NIH in particular did not put its vast resources into rapidly developing and answer questions like the one the oncologist asked. Yeah. It's so weird that we're behind everybody. You know, Israel is doing all this testing, all these other countries. What about us? We're a big country. We got a lot of money. We got a lot of smart doctors. Why aren't we doing any testing? It's ridiculous. That brings me to the question of therapeutics right we've got this now this merc pill is going to come out and it's something you can take once you have covid which is supposed to be spectacular at keeping you out of the hospital um or from dying but this is

something that i understand that david is given to patients who have not been vaccinated because the vaccine is above the Merck pill in terms of preferences, like better not to get COVID than to just get it and have to treat it. But my understanding was Merck can only be of help to you if you haven't taken the vaccine. And maybe, I don't know, does it work as well as the vaccine that's keeping you out of the hospital or death? So I'm not aware of why this would be something that you couldn't get if you were vaccinated. I think that this is, if we believe the data coming out of the companies, that these are going to be very effective pills. Um, if we're able to at least diagnose people early in the, in the course of the infection and get them the treatment before they get really sick. Um, but I think it, it, it should be something that works,

um, as well in people who have been vaccinated versus not. So my general advice would be get vaccinated, but if you get sick and these pills are available, and I mean, by the time they come out, there will be an indication as to whether or not you can get them when you're vaccinated or not, but they should be available to you. I don't think that getting a vaccine is gonna make it so that you can't get these pills.

OK, but again, it's better not to get COVID in the first place if you can avoid it so that we like the vaccines for the people who can who can get them, though we I am opposed to the mandates. I like these therapeutics, though, Jay, I mean, I like the fact that we are now focused a little bit more on cures as opposed to just preventions, because there are people who just are not going to get the vaccine for whatever reason, philosophical, religious, or they're not able to. I had a really respected doctor on the show who loves vaccines, but she can't get it. She's bummed out. She can't get it, but she can't because of an immuno issue. So we do need good therapeutics. So where are we on that? I mean, actually, the development of these two new therapeutics, one by Pfizer and one by Merck, potentially has the potential to just alter the epidemic altogether, maybe

even end it, in a sense, at least end the panic around it. We'll see. I mean, I'm always a little careful when I don't want to get super excited and tell people that based on press releases by drug companies, that's usually not a good idea. always a little careful when I don't want to like get super excited and tell people that, uh, what based on, on press releases by drug companies, that's usually not a good idea. Um, so let's see what the data actually show. Um, but if, if there's anything close to the claims, especially for that Pfizer one, um, then, then we're in really, really good shape, uh, going forward with this disease. Yeah. I always, I always like, oh, Pfizer really thinks everybody should

get a booster. I'm like, OK, all right. I'm going to talk to Dr. J. How about Jeff in Florida? This caller. Yeah, Jeff in Florida. There we go. He's got a good question that I'd love to hear the answer to as well. Hi, Jeff. Go ahead. Hi, Megan. In your previous segment with Senator Senator Rand Paul, he mentioned that cloth masks were not effective and the effective masks are, you know, the N95 masks that have that really tight seal around your mouth. I'm just curious what the doctors feel about the efficacy of cloth masking. What do you think of that, Dave? Um, so I, I'm going to say that my personal read of the literature is that on balance, cloth masks do offer some protection. But I will also say that the, the level of evidence is not as strong as has been, I think, put out there. I do think that masks play a role. I do think that they probably reduce transmission.

And I think that when we're in indoor settings with high levels of transmission, we should be doing everything we can to block that transmission. I do think that N95s are better than cloth masks. But I don't want to come out too strongly on this, other than to say, I do think that when we have higher levels of transmission, we should be a little bit more cautious about what we do.

You know, Jay, it's like I send my kids off to class each morning. They're 12, 10, and 8, and their masks are like over here on their face. faces, like falling down off the noses. They're loose. They're, you know, they're kids. Abby, my assistant, she's got, she's got, is Lillian three yet? She's three. She's got a three-year-old in the mask. It's like, oh, it's in the back of her head. You know, they're snotty kids. It's like, whatever. It's like ridiculous that, that you tell, that mask is doing absolutely nothing. You just, I don't have to be a doctor, but I'll ask you because you are. I agree with you, Megan. I think that especially on children, the evidence that masking children has any effect whatsoever on disease spread is null. I mean, zero. There's no high quality randomized evidence whatsoever about masking children and the effect on the disease spread.

And you can look and see how the different agencies around the world have dealt with this. Our CDC recommends masking two-year-olds. No other health agency in the world agrees with that. So, for instance, in Europe, the masking recommendation started six. And actually, the ECDC says 12. And the World Health Organization says six to 11-year-olds, be very careful. Think carefully about it, because there may be developmental harms and other harms to some kids from masking. Learning languages might be tough for some kids if they can't see the faces or learning emotional responses. I mean, there's

some weird fight among psychologists, which I would never have thought mean, there's some weird fight among psychologists, which I would never have thought that there's some people who say that masking kids have absolutely no effect on them. There's no harm whatsoever. And I have no idea how they can conclude that from the literature I've seen. It seems really likely to me

that there's some harm to some kids from masking them. At the same time, there's no evidence, no good evidence at all that this stops the disease spread or has any appreciable effect on disease spread. As you say, the kids don't wear the mask very effectively. Frankly, adults don't wear these masks very effectively. So I come down against masking children. I think it is at least forced masking of children. If a parent thinks it's necessary, I mean, I'm not going to sit there and argue with them, but I do not think that schools should be forcing kids to mask. I think they should have very, very easy ways to opt out if they so wish.

Yes. Preach. All right, stand by. More with the doctors right after this. We're still taking your questions. You can call us and get on the queue. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Dr. David Dowdy are here taking your questions. Can I ask you, Jay, I was curious your reaction on I am science, Dr. Fauci and everyone else is a liar. Your thoughts?

Nobody with such hubris should be at the center of COVID policy. There's actually a conflict of interest there, Megan, that's really important for people to understand. Dr. Fauci is the head of NAID. He is in charge of funding a very large number of immunologists, a very large number of epidemiologists, and a very large number of virologists. Scientists are normal people. They worry about their careers and they worry about funding. If you have somebody who's in charge of that kind of funding, also in charge of COVID policy, it creates a deep conflict of interest that's irresolvable. I think Dr. Fauci should step down for one of these two roles. It would be nice.

I don't expect it because to me, it seems like he's getting a little drunk on his own power and fame. That's what Rand Paul said. Here's a good question. There's a couple of questions like this. Let's go to Melanie in Indiana. We've got a question about antibodies. Hi, Melanie, go ahead. level of antibodies are actually protective for people. And I think if we haven't done the research to find out the answer to that question, we should. And it's almost criminal because if we

knew what we needed, then we could argue less about whether or not you should be naturally... Yeah, whether natural immunity should count. David, I'll give that one to you. Sure. And that's a great question, Melanie. I think the challenge is that antibodies are not the whole story when it comes to immunity against this virus. And so we're unfortunately never going to have that antibody level. Antibodies are just what are easiest for us to measure, but it's not the entirety of what our immunity is. So I wish we could have that level, but I don't think we will achieve it, unfortunately. I want to tell you guys, this is just breaking from the AP, U.S. official, United States identifies first case of Omicron COVID-19 variant in this country. My husband,

Doug, had to go get a COVID test this morning. I hope it's not him. No, it's not breaking news. It was already here. Yeah, that's right. But you guys were right. So your your suspicions have been confirmed. Pat in Illinois has a question about the effects of vaccination. Hi, Pat. Go ahead. Hi, good morning. How are you all? Good. Thanks. What's up? Good. Good. So my question is, I understand that I've been vaccinated, so I can still get the virus. However, my chances of becoming seriously ill or dying are much reduced. So I'm vaccinated. That's great. How, what is the thought though on, because I hear this on mainstream media all the time, that I need to get vaccinated to protect other people. So the evidence on that is, is interesting. It's, it's for the first couple of months, it's probably true.

First two, three months after. So the efficacy in the studies, like there's a study out of Qatar that the efficacy against getting infected at all is about 60, 70% after two or three months. But then it starts to decline very sharply. So that by six months, it goes down to 20% efficacy. So in other words, if 100 people could get it that are unvaccinated, 80 people that are vaccinated will get it infected. So the efficacy, the public protection provided by the vaccine declines very sharply over

time. This is partly, I think, why people are talking about boosters, although even there, the evidence is only short term. Whereas the private protection, the protection against severe disease seems to be much longer lasting. I personally had the vaccine in April, the second dose, and then I got COVID in August. I mean, it was, I mean, I didn't get hospitalized. It was, I mean, I was not happy to get it, but it was, it was, it wasn't so bad. So I very strongly recommend the vaccine, but as a, as a mechanism for public protection, this is not like many of the other vaccines we use that are in broad use in public.

That's interesting. I want to go to Gene in Indiana. Gene, what's your question? Yes. My wife and daughter have both had the virus and I was around both of them. And actually, the day my wife was getting sick, I was right next to her. And I'm O positive blood type. I've heard that if you're O positive, there could be some resistance to the virus. Is that correct? David? So I think that there are people who get very mild cases and asymptomatic cases. I do not think it's a result of blood type. Yeah, there's a lot of people said that, too. Like, I'm a positive and they're like, oh, a positives don't get it. And I haven't gotten it, but I've also gotten

the vaccine. And I don't know, whatever. I don't listen to all the Dr. Fauci edicts, but I do what's reasonable. Here's a question for you. This is actually, Phil is in Massachusetts. He got a follow up on ivermectin. Go ahead, Phil. Hi, Megan. It's good to talk to the doc here. I've been in dairy farming my whole life, and we've been around the ivermectin. And it's always a poor on worm medication. It's never oral. So when did this become oral, especially for people and what's the deal with that? So ivermectin is used by billions of people around the world to treat parasitic infections. There's this disease called Onchocerciasis, which is the number one cause of blindness worldwide. Ivermectin is very effective. I think it's an oral dose for that. So it is effective in,

used, you know, widely as an oral medication. So I don't think the controversy is whether the Ivermectin is useful as a human drug. It is incredibly useful. It was a Nobel prize was awarded for it in the mid ninetiess because it was such a big advance. The only question is whether it's effective. The question here is whether it's effective to treat COVID-19 early on or not. And for that, as I said earlier, I don't know the answer. But can I ask you a quick question? We're up against a break.

But how do you know if you need a drug at all if you get COVID? How do you know? I got to go get the monoclonal antibodies or I got to get looking to ivermectin. David? Part of this is about how old you are and how susceptible you might be to getting sick. Also, how early you are in the course of the disease. But in general, especially as we get better treatments, I think the pressure is going to be on to get diagnosed sooner so that you can get these meds and keep yourself out of the hospital. And more testing. We need more at home testing. Guys, such a pleasure.

Thank you so much. And thanks to all of my listeners for calling in. Really appreciated your thoughtful questions. I want to tell you, don't forget to watch the show tomorrow. We had a lot of hot case legal cases. The Supreme Court case on abortion. Jussie Smollett. That case is underway. Ghislaine Maxwell. There's a lot. Download the Megyn Kelly Show on Apple, Pandora, Spotify, and Stitcher. Go to youtube.com slash megynkelly to watch it. See you tomorrow. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.