- Fox Business host Neil Cavuto credited vaccines with saving his life after a 2nd bout with COVID.
- Cavuto, who is immunocompromised, landed in the ICU from COVID pneumonia.
- "Let me be clear: doctors say that had I not been vaccinated at all, I wouldn't be here," he said.
Fox Business anchor Neil Cavuto credited COVID vaccines with saving his life after he battled a second bout with COVID-19 that landed him in an intensive care unit earlier this year.
Cavuto, who is immunocompromised, returned to work on Monday after being out for nearly a month while battling pneumonia as a result of his COVID-19 infection.
"My opinions don't matter. You matter. The news matters. But this did drag on a long time for me, so you really do deserve an explanation from me," he said on the air on Monday.
Cavuto previously was out of work due to COVID in October 2021 and similarly attributed his recovery to being vaccinated and urging others to get the shots too, saying, "life is too short to be an ass."
"I did get COVID again. But a far, far, more serious strand, what doctors call COVID pneumonia. It landed me in intensive care for quite a while, and it really was touch-and-go. Some of you who wanted to put me out of my misery darn near got what you wished for. So sorry to disappoint you, but the vaccines did not cause this," Cavuto said Monday, calling the idea that vaccines caused his illness "a grassy knoll" theory.
Cavuto is a cancer survivor and has multiple sclerosis, a neurological disease in which the body's immune system attacks the central nervous system. He blamed his "very compromised immune system" for his scary brush with death, and explained on air on Monday that he is "among the vulnerable three percent or so of the population that cannot sustain the full benefits of a vaccine."
"But let me be clear: doctors say that had I not been vaccinated at all, I wouldn't be here," he said. "It provided some defense, but that is still better than no defense. Maybe not great comfort for some of you, and frankly, not great comfort for me either. This was scary."
"I'm not here to debate vaccinations for you. Just offer an explanation for me. I owe you that," Cavuto added. "I didn't want to become the story, but for many for you, I did."
—The Recount (@therecount) February 22, 2022
Cavuto isn't the only major news anchor to open up about being immunocompromised during the COVID-19 pandemic. Last October, CNN's chief national correspondent and anchor John King disclosed that he has multiple sclerosis.
But Cavuto's personal testimonial to the power of vaccines stands in contrast to many of his high-profile Fox News colleagues. Fox primetime opinion hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham have spread skepticism, cast doubt, and promoted misleading information about the benefits of COVID-19 vaccines.
A 2021 Kaiser Family Foundation study found that individuals who primarily watched Fox News and other conservative networks were more likely to believe misinformation about COVID-19 than those who received their news from other outlets. Kaiser's vice president and director of public opinion and survey research Liz Hamel noted, however, that the result "may be because the people who are self-selecting these organizations believe (the misinformation) going in."
The network, which mounted a major PSA effort and on-air blitz to promote COVID-19 vaccinations in the summer of 2021, also rolled out its own internal policies in 2021 requiring unvaccinated employees to undergo a daily health screening, wear a mask, and social distance in the office and studios.
Fox News' CEO Suzanne Scott declined to say whether she'd spoken to some of the network's loudest vaccine-skeptics about their rhetoric in an October 2021 interview.
"I have a regular cadence of conversations with a wide variety of talent here, including our primetime talent," she told The Hollywood Reporter. "I will never discuss those conversations. That's not who I am. I am loyal first. I am loyal to everyone on the team, whether they are someone on the news side or the opinion side."