The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Friday in two sets of challenges to the Biden administration’s authority during the COVID-19 pandemic. The debate is set to determine whether or not to halt federal vaccine and testing mandates for health care workers put in place by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
For over two hours of debate, the justices were mostly skeptical of the administration’s attempt to impose a vaccine-or-test mandate for workers at large employers.
Following oral arguments on Friday Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Sonia Sotomayor were criticized for spreading what some experts are calling ‘dangerous COVID misinformation.’
During one portion of the debate, Obama appointed justice Elena Kagan claimed that “the best way to stop the spread of COVID,” is to get as many people vaccinated as possible.
Many experts have since slammed Kagan’s recent comments as irresponsible citing the dozens of rigorous scientific studies which have found zero discernible relationship between levels of vaccinations and case rate, and the CDC director even conceding the current vaccines do nothing to prevent the spread of the virus. One study even found a direct causal relationship between an increase in deaths in countries with higher levels of vaccinations.
On the same day, Justice Sonya Sotomayor claimed that there were “over 100,000 children in hospital” from COVID and that many of those children “are on ventilators.”
Following her comments, Washington Post fact-checkers gave justice Sotomayor four Pinocchios which is the highest on their scale, saying that Sotomayor went ‘off the rails.’
When asked about Sotomayor’s comments, CDC director Rochelle Walensky acknowledged that the real number is closer to 3,500. But even the lower 3,500 number has been questioned by many experts, including even in the liberal-leaning outlet the Atlantic.
According to a recent report from the Atlantic, 40 to 45 percent of the hospitalizations tallied as COVID hospitalizations among children, were for people who were hospitalized for a different reason entirely.
Additionally, according to an analysis in the same report that covered 50,000 COVID hospital admissions, 48 percent of the people who were hospitalized for COVID, were patients with mild or asymptomatic disease.
According to another recent report from the Daily Mail, a quarter of people in hospitals in England who are being marked as ‘COVID patients’ were also being treated for other illnesses altogether.
Incorrect information about masks was also brought up briefly during the arguments. Some experts say the constant misinformation regarding the efficacy of masks is due to the CDC and most of the national news outlets withholding what the data actually say about masks.
According to a recent report in NY Magazine, the CDC covered up what one of their own studies found about masking children in schools.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a notable, yet mostly ignored, large-scale study of COVID transmission in American schools at the end of May which found no positive effect of masking in schools.
Despite the findings in their own study, the CDC a month later recommended that all kids starting at the age of 2 wear masks regardless of vaccination status.
Contrary to popular belief, experts have pointed out that every single one of the best studies performed on mask usage shows that masks are ineffective at preventing the spread of any respiratory illnesses.
The misinformation believed and repeated by even Supreme Court Justices stems from a problem that goes back to the initial onset of COVID-19.
According to polling from last year – which was also mentioned on the Real-Time with Maher show – the more liberal you are and the more you trust the media, the more likely you are to believe in inaccurate information about COVID.
The survey found that more than one-third of Americans overestimate by as much as a factor of ten the probability a person with COVID-19 will require hospitalization.
Researchers involved in the Franklin Templeton/Gallup study asked Americans in December what “percentage of people who have been infected by the coronavirus needed to be hospitalized.”
The perceptions of most people were way off from reality.
The best available estimates place the figure between 1 and 5 percent, and much less for those who have high vitamin d.
In September of last year, Dr Anthony Fauci was fact-checked on the false claim that COVID-19 has killed more children than influenza, saying that “…even though relatively speaking, compared to an adult, they do not get as seriously ill, we have lost more children from SARS-CoV-2 than we ever lose from influenza.”
During the 2018-19 flu season, 477 children aged 0-17 died. Even if Dr. Fauci was only referring to children aged 0-5, there were around 200 deaths from influenza in that one season.
Scientists say the current COVID-19 death numbers for children can be especially misleading.
A team of Johns Hopkins researchers recently reported that after studying a large sample size of children, they “found a mortality rate of zero among children without a pre-existing medical condition such as leukemia.”
