Democrats Vow to Fight Coronavirus ‘Misinformation,’ Fail to Do So

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor stands during a private ceremony for
Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images
Hannah Knudsen

The Biden White House on Monday refused to correct the coronavirus misinformation touted by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who on Friday claimed that 100,000 children were “in serious condition, many on ventilators” from the Chinese coronavirus, despite the left’s self-proclaimed vow to fight coronavirus-related misinformation.

In July 2021, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory “on the dangers of health misinformation,” asserting that people “live in a world where misinformation poses an imminent and insidious threat to our nation’s health.”

“We must confront misinformation as a nation. Every one of us has the power and the responsibility to make a difference in this fight. Lives are depending on it,” he said at the time.

What is more, Murthy stated at the time that “those of us who may have larger platforms” bear a “greater responsibility to think about that.”

We know that the dramatic increase in the speed — speed and scale of spreading misinformation has, in part, been enabled by these platforms. So that’s why in this advisory today, we are asking them to step up. We know they have taken some steps to address misinformation, but much, much more has to be done. And we can’t wait longer for them to take aggressive action because it’s costing people their lives.

More recently, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D)  also prioritized this, announcing a “COVID-19 Emergency Response Package” that will, in part, fund “more partnerships to fight misinformation”:

The Biden White House appeared to drop the ball on its own efforts, as it failed to correct coronavirus-related misinformation spread by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

“You guys have been very aggressive countering COVID misinformation,” Fox News’s Peter Doocy said during Monday’s press briefing.

“So what do you guys think about COVID misinformation coming from the Supreme Court and Sonia Sotomayor’s false claim that over 100,000 children are in serious condition, many on ventilators?” he asked.

Despite the White House’s self-proclaimed goal of combatting such misinformation, White House press secretary Jen Psaki blatantly refused to offer a correction.

“Well, I’m not going to speak to Supreme Court arguments or statements made in those arguments,” she said before deflecting:

But I will tell you that what is at stake here is our effort to protect health workers and, most importantly, protect patients with the CMS rule and also to make workplaces safer with the OSHA rule, which we have confidence in our legal argument for. So I will leave it to them to decide but that’s what’s being argued now.

Sotomayor made the false claim during Friday’s oral arguments for the Biden administration’s vaccine mandates on large employers and healthcare workers. As of last Wednesday, there were just over 4,000 children in the hospital due to the coronavirus.

As the Washington Post reported:

More than 4,000 children were hospitalized with covid-19 across the nation Wednesday, Washington Post figures show, marking a new high that towers above previous peaks set during the summer when the delta variant was driving up infections.

The tally, which includes confirmed as well as suspected pediatric covid-19 patients, reflects a steep rise in infections in that group. Less than two weeks ago, on Christmas, fewer than 2,000 children were in hospitals with covid.

The seven-day average of pediatric hospitalizations was slightly lower at 3,713. Hospitalizations of adults are also rising rapidly.

Sotomayor’s response prompted a retort from Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a frequent critic of the Biden administration’s’ response to the pandemic, who asked, “Is Fauci advising Justice Sotomayor? Will YouTube censor her?”:

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