Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade has been ridiculed for claiming unvaccinated New Yorkers were being forced to “shelter in place” like Americans stranded in Afghanistan.
Kilmeade, who has consistently pushed anti-vaxx messaging on the Fox breakfast show, took aim at New York City’s new indoor vaccine mandate which came into effect on Tuesday.
“Guess what they’re doing in this terribly run city,” Kilmeade said Wednesday morning.
“They are deciding you can’t go to plays, you can’t go to movies, you can’t go to bars, you can’t go to restaurants, you can’t go to gyms, you can’t go to anything unless you have your vaccination card. Which takes a dollar to make a knockoff card.
“What if you have the antibodies, and what if you can’t get the vaccination? You have to shelter in place now, like an American in Afghanistan?”
Kilmeade was accused of being “insanely irresponsible” for promoting fake vaccination cards.
Moments earlier, his Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt had pushed “vaccine misinformation” by claiming that taking Regeneron after becoming infected with Covid-19 is “basically still getting vaccinated”.
An estimated 15,000 Americans remain in Afghanistan after the Taliban took control of Kabul at the weekend.
The US military is racing to evacuate them and Afghan allies who supported the 20-year occupation, which collapsed earlier this week.
While the Taliban has given assurances of their safety, passage to Hamid Karzai International Airport and the chaotic scenes on the ground has made uplifting them treacherous.
In New York, residents now have to show proof of vaccination to enter bars, restaurants, movie theatres and museums in an effort to reduce the spread of the Delta variant.
The programme, dubbed the Key to NYC, will be phased in over the next month, with fines for businesses that fail to enforce them beginning from September 13.
