Jen Psaki Patiently Explained To Peter Doocy How Vaccines Help Prevent Hospitalization And Death

It’s a new year, and yet the more things change, the more they stay the same. Case in point: Everyone’s favorite D.C. frenemies remain at each other’s throats. On Monday, Fox News’ Peter Doocy once again asked White House press secretary something she could easily debunk. And debunk she did. This time it was about a subject Doocy has an unusually hard time understanding: the once-in-a-century public health crisis his network may be making worse.

As usual, Doocy tried to goose the Biden administration, assuming he’d stumbled upon an argumentative checkmate. He hadn’t. His beef was with the fact that those who are vaccinated and boostered can still catch COVID, though the chances of them being hospitalized or even dying are very thin compared to the unvaxxed.

“I understand that the science says that vaccines prevent death,” Doocy said. Of course, there was more. “But I’m triple-vaxxed, still got COVID. You’re triple-vaxxed, still got COVID. Why is the president still referring to this as a pandemic of the unvaccinated?”

And so Psaki does what she does every time Doocy asks her something: She visibly swallowed her annoyance and patiently proved him wrong. She pointed out that her illness resulted in “minor symptoms,” then reminded him that “there is a huge difference between that and being unvaccinated.” She then produced stats to back her claims up.

“You are 17 times more likely to go to the hospital if you’re not vaccinated, 20 times more likely to die,” Psaki explained to Doocy. “So yes, the impact for people who are unvaccinated is far more dire than for those who are vaccinated.”

This wasn’t simply yet another Doocy-Psaki dust-up. As Media Matters’ John Whitehouse pointed out on Twitter, this exact issue surfaced on Fox & Friends last week. And who said exactly what Psaki said? Doocy’s own father, Steve Doocy, who was, of course, shouted down by his vaccine skeptic co-hosts. Perhaps someone’s not paying attention to his father.

(Via The Daily Beast)