Joy Behar claimed on Wednesday that co-host Whoopi Goldberg — who is vaccinated and has had COVID at least twice — would have been killed by the novel coronavirus if she had not been vaccinated and boosted.
Goldberg, who just returned to the show following her latest bout with COVID, began the segment by lashing out at conservatives who have had their fill of outgoing National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director — and White House Medical adviser — Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Referencing Fauci’s final White House briefing on Tuesday – during which he encouraged people to continue testing and getting updated vaccines for COVID as they became available — Goldberg noted that some critics were ready to throw out anything Fauci said on principle.
“A lot of conservatives who posted about how much they hate Dr. Fauci that they would rather get COVID than ever test again, let me explain something to you as somebody who’s just come off it again. And not a nice, light, you know, because I came off a tough ass [COVID diagnosis], OK?” Goldberg said. “You don’t want to get this. It’s not funny. You don’t want this. This will kill you! What’s the matter with you people?”
WATCH:
Whoopi blows a gasket at Dr. Fauci's critics.
"You don't want this! This WILL kill you!" she of the virus.
Joy Behar claims the only reason Whoopi didn't die of COVID was because she was boosted. "If you're not boosted you're gonna [die]!" pic.twitter.com/rPpV1F4UmI— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) November 23, 2022
Behar then argued that the only reason COVID hadn’t killed Goldberg was the fact that she had gotten her latest booster shot.
“The reason it didn’t kill you is because you’ve been boosted. If you are not boosted, you’re gonna — you could die. That’s the point,” Behar said. “People write on Twitter or someplace, you see? ‘Whoopi got it, and she has the vaccinations.’ Yeah, but Whoopi’s sitting here. She’s not in a casket, thank you.”
“And people who are immunocompromised, you know, I have to stay well, so I don’t hurt anybody else. This is how we take care of each other,” Goldberg continued. “I don’t understand how a suggestion for making your life perhaps better for the holidays makes people crazy.”
Co-host Sunny Hostin jumped in then to defend Fauci, claiming that all he had ever wanted to do was help people. “He’s spent his entire life saving people’s lives,” she said.