John Oliver, host of HBO’s late-night comedy news show “Last Week Tonight,” is sounding off on parents who don’t want their kids’ schools to require masks this year.
The British host said, “hot vax summer” is giving way to “dipsh** autumn” because parents are resisting school mask mandates.
“Alarmingly, roughly 15 percent of new cases are children, with over 260 kids being newly hospitalized each day,” said Oliver. “And all of this means that many hospitals are yet again being stretched to a breaking point, particularly in certain parts of the country, with Florida and Texas alone accounting for 40% of new hospitalizations.”
He then called the response of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis “underwhelming,” saying, “If you told me just a few years ago that Florida’s Republican governor would respond to a deadly threat with, ‘These waves are just something you have to deal with,’ I would assume they were talking about Miami sinking into a warming ocean, not a totally different, totally self-induced crisis.”
Deeming DeSantis a “cut-rate Coach Taylor [a character from defunct NBC show, Friday Night Lights],” Oliver continued, “Just a few weeks ago, DeSantis issued an order banning school mask mandates, making Florida one of at least seven states now prohibiting schools from imposing them. And school board meetings around the country have seen fiery exchanges about this issue.”
The 44-year-old comedian then turned his attention to parents who have been arguing against mask mandates, playing video of parents protesting such a policy at a Williamson County, Tennessee, school board meeting.
Said Oliver, “You can’t help thinking that some of the fuss over masks is more about the parents than about the kids.”
He added, “We are only fighting about masks in school right now because there are a bunch of foolish adults who have decided not to get the vaccine, and to all of them, I can only say, to quote a bunch of upsettingly loud idiots, ‘We know who you are, and you’re the fucking problem.’”
Daily Wire personality Matt Walsh attended a different Tennessee school board meeting last week to voice his opposition to mask requirements, citing Covid facts Oliver left out of his monologue.
“COVID poses almost no risk to our kids at all,” Walsh pointed out to hearty applause. “4.2 million children have tested positive for COVID, a total of o.oo8% (334) of them have died.”
Walsh went on to cite statistics that show 480 kids died of the flu in the 2018-2019 school year. “That’s more than have died from COVID in a year and a half,” he said before asking, “Now, did anyone on this board suggest at any point that year that kids wear masks? Did anyone in this room suggest, at any point, anyone wear masks for flu? Which again, is more dangerous, to kids, than COVID — that’s a fact.”
Walsh ended by telling the school board of mask requirements, “You do it to make yourselves feel better and to protect yourselves politically. The child’s mask is a symbolic security blanket for you, not them. It’s a disgrace and you should all be ashamed.”