It's no secret that Ted Nugent doesn't believe in the coronavirus pandemic. The musician is openly conservative and a declared fan of former President Donald Trump , having stated that he was "the best president of our time." Nugent has also expressed disbelief in the use of masks and the effectiveness of vaccines against the new virus, but recently his denialist discourse has reached a new level.
Last Wednesday, the 7th, the musician did a livestream on his Facebook page where he expressed his frustration at having his tour canceled once again. According to the Blabbermouth , Nugent blamed the production companies and called them "filthy bastards, liars, scammers, crazy COVID-19 illusionists."
Seeking to justify his point of view, Ted Nugent declared himself a man "addicted to truth, logic, and common sense" and stated that this "common sense" compelled him to ask: "Why didn't we shut everything down during COVID-19 until -18?".
The musician didn't stop there. Nugent went on to detail his argument and stated with conviction: “There was a COVID-1, and there was a COVID-2, -3, -4, -5, -6, -7, -8, -9, -10, -11, -12, -13, -14, -15, -16, -17, -18. COVID-1 through -18 didn't shut anything down, but, wow, COVID-19 did.”
For clarification, the number 19 in COVID-19 refers to the year the virus was discovered (2019). In February 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the acronym as an abbreviation of the official name "Coronavirus Disease 2019".
In his live stream, Ted Nugent further reinforced the narrative disseminated by conservative circles that the number of COVID-19 deaths was being inflated by the media, and that healthcare professionals were being forced to falsify death certificates, randomly attributing causes of death to the coronavirus. Currently, the United States has recorded more than half a million deaths resulting from the pandemic.
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