Fox News host Pete Hegseth urges healthy people to 'have some courage' and get 'out there' to help build herd immunity while broadcasting from inside his house

• Fox News host Pete Hegseth called for Americans to "put freedom before fear" and start violating stay-at-home orders that states across the country have imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
• Hegseth, broadcasting from inside his house, urged "healthy people" to "have some courage" and start going outside more in order to build herd immunity.
• "There's a lot of anxiety, there's a lot of misinformation," the Fox News host, who once claimed that "germs are not a real thing," added.
• "Healthy people getting out there — they're going to have some courage," said Hegseth, who appears to be in good health and has not, as far as the public knows, tested positive for the virus.
• Confirmed cases of coronavirus are still rising across the country, with the exception of New York, which has seen a decline in new cases since imposing strict social-distancing guidelines.
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Conservative Fox News opinion host Pete Hegseth took to the airwaves on Thursday to call for Americans to "put freedom before fear" and start "getting out there" in defiance of stay-at-home orders governors across the country have imposed to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Hegseth, broadcasting from inside his house, urged "healthy people" to "have some courage" and start going outside more in order to build so-called "herd immunity." This advice contradicts the science and expert advice, which holds that the US is a long way from an immunity rate that could protect the population and that infection rates that high would come with a catastrophic death toll.

"Listen, there's a lot of anxiety, there's a lot of misinformation," the Fox News host added. "The 'experts' have been telling us hundreds of thousands of people are going to die. Now that we're learning more, herd immunity is our friend."

"Healthy people getting out there — they're going to have some courage," said Hegseth, who appears to be in good health and has not, as far as the public knows, tested positive for the coronavirus.

Hegseth went on to praise people in Texas who are "denying ridiculous orders," apparently referring to salon and bar owners who've kept their businesses open and pastors who've held in-person services in violation of the governor's stay-home order.

The regular "Fox & Friends" host, an outspoken Trump supporter, said on-air last year that he hadn't washed his hands in 10 years.

"I inoculate myself. Germs are not a real thing," he said. "I can't see them. Therefore, they're not real."

Hegseth, a climate science denier who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for US Senate in Minnesota in 2012, later claimed he was being facetious.

The US is currently the global epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak, with more than 1.2 million confirmed cases and 73,573 deaths.

New York — the biggest hotspot in the country — and Connecticut and New Jersey, are finally seeing a decline in new infections, deaths, and hospitalizations. The drop comes after all three states imposed strict social-distancing guidelines and shuttered businesses across the tri-state area to contain the spread of the virus.

But the outbreak is continuing to surge across the rest of the US, even as 30 states are looking to loosen social distancing guidelines and open businesses.

Eighteen out of these 30 states haven't met the Trump administration's national guidelines for reopening, according to The New York Times, even as the president contradicts his own White House's directives and calls for them to begin loosening restrictions and open businesses.

Nine of the 30 states have seen an increase in their share of positive tests. In one example, Georgia reported 1,000 new cases on the same day its Republican governor, Brian Kemp, lifted the stay-at-home order for most residents.

But Hegseth and others in the right-wing media continue urging the country to reopen to buttress the US economy. Trump has also made headlines for repeatedly insisting that the cure "cannot be worse than the problem itself," even as public health officials warn that moving too fast could cost more lives and plunge the economy deeper into a recession.

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