Why aren't conservative TV elites dying of COVID like so many conservative talk radio hosts?

The Week

"Another anti-vaccine conservative radio host has died of COVID-19," says Ryan Cooper. "Bob Enyart, the Denver personality infamous for once reading the obituaries of people who had died of AIDS on the air while playing Queen's 'Another One Bites the Dust.' By my count, that makes five such deaths in the past couple months: Enyart, Florida's Marc Bernier and Dick Farrel, and Tennessee's Phil Valentine and Jimmy DeYoung. Each one refused to get vaccinated and paid with his life. Elderly unvaccinated men dying of COVID-19 is sadly unremarkable in America today. What's noteworthy is who has been spared: the most elite ranks of conservative media. While B-list regional radio guys are being felled on a near-weekly basis, the Fox News primetime lineup is all healthy and safe. It reflects the psychotic disregard the conservative movement has for the lives of its own members. We know for a fact that most of Fox News is vaccinated, and it's a safe bet that the ones that refuse to say have as well. Rupert Murdoch got his dose at the first possible moment. Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt, Brian Kilmeade, and Mark Levin all got their shots. Tucker Carlson's angry refusal to say whether or not he did speaks for itself. The Fox headquarters even has a requirement that all staff disclose their vaccination status, and the unvaccinated have to wear masks and submit to daily health checks. ow, this is not to say that all the top conservative elite are cynical liars who don't believe the right-wing propaganda they espouse. Their level of genuine belief varies between hosts and topics — Carlson, I'll wager, knows perfectly well he is spreading lies about the vaccine, but he also gives every sign of being a committed white supremacist. Sean Hannity also knows the vaccines works and has said so, but he can't bear his viewers yelling at him for a single second. Doocy, meanwhile, seems to be the network's lone voice unequivocally advocating for vaccines. By the same token, it's hard to know why exactly lower-ranking conservative radio guys didn't follow Doocy's advice. It could be the different social context of being an ultra-rich celebrity in New York, and therefore seeing personally thousands of people who got the vaccine with no ill effects, versus being in a conservative backwater where liberals are less present. It could just be that radio guys are more addicted to their own propaganda, or spend more time in the fever swamps of Facebook ivermectin groups."