-As COVID cases are, once again, surging
and a new variant is spreading,
Republicans are claiming, falsely,
that Democrats want to return to lockdowns
and suggesting that you can use mouthwash to treat COVID.
For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪ [ Cheering and applause ]
With holiday travel, COVID cases are, once again, on the rise
and, now, there's a new variant that, early indications suggest,
is even more transmissible than Delta,
called the Omicron variant.
We got one of our earliest introductions
to how the virus spreads
from a large gathering in New York City recently.
-The CDC has now contacted
more than 35,000 people
who attended a recent animé convention in New York City
to alert them of a COVID case there.
Scientists believe the convention could give them
the earliest looks at the spread of Omicron in the U.S.
-Hey, COVID, you leave our animé conventions alone!
[ Laughter ] If animé fans
can't talk to each other in a convention setting,
they're going to bring it to the office,
and nobody wants that!
[ Laughter ]
"Hey, just FYI,
there was a new 'Sailor Moon' last night,
so, maybe steer clear of Dave."
[ Laughter ]
And it's an extra bummer, since Omicron
sounds exactly like a character name from animé.
[ Laughter ] That must've been weird
for the contact tracers.
I'm calling to let you know
you may have come in contact
with Omicron at the animé convention.
"Aw, no way! I should've got an autograph!"
[ Laughter and applause ]
And, by the way, I'm saying all of this
as a self-identified comic book fan.
I am not judging.
It is hard to find people with the same interests.
I mean, when I worked at "SNL," I used to go to Lorne's office
and ask him who his favorite "Spider-Man" character was
and he'd say Norman Osborn. [ Laughter ]
[ As Michaels ] You know, everyone focuses
on the Green Goblin, but they forgot
Oscorp did some really good things.
[ Laughter ]
And, by the way, if COVID can spread at an animé convention,
can you imagine how bad it'll be at other mass gatherings?
Have you ever been to SantaCon?
That thing was a superspreader event
[ Laughter ] before COVID even existed.
If you have children, I beg of you,
keep them away from midtown during SantaCon.
It will scar them for the rest of their lives.
[ Laughter ] And I know from experience.
I'll never forget my kids saying,
"Daddy, why is Santa peeing on a police car?"
[ Laughter ]
Uh, well, uh...
that cop was very bad this year and Santa's out of coal.
[ Laughter ]
So they detected Omicron at an animé convention,
which then allowed it to spread to other states.
Yesterday, CNN interviewed someone
with one of the earliest cases, who, thankfully,
had only very mild symptoms and quickly recovered,
which he credited to the fact that he was vaccinated,
although the anchors still seemed a little suspicious
when he started sniffling.
-So tell us about your experience
of getting sick with Omicron.
What were your symptoms? What was it like?
-Yeah, I had a very light what I thought was a cold --
fatigue, cough, runny nose --
which only lasted about 24 hours.
I'm very pro-vaccine and I think,
because of me getting the booster and my vaccine,
that I was able to recover so fast
and my symptoms were so mild.
[ Sniffle ]
-Peter, are you okay now?
It sounds like you got the sniffles, a little nasally.
What's going on? How you feeling?
-No. Unfortunately, living in Minnesota,
it's freezing cold all the time, so,
just the air gets to me and I also have asthma,
so it's just like it's an ongoing thing my entire life.
[ Laughter ] But I feel 100%.
-Alright. I was just checking.
[ Laughter ] I heard a little sniffle
and a little nasally.
Just making sure you're alright.
-Unfortunately, this is just how I sound all the time.
[ Laughter ] -Oh, now I feel bad.
[ Laughter ] -Yeah.
-Hey, man, I know what you're going through.
I have asthma and I carry an inhaler with me all the time.
I keep it at the desk in case Sal writes some long, wordy run
where there's no time for me to take a breath.
Plus, I need it after I do my Mike Lindell impression
because I don't know how that guy does it, but I've --
[ As Lindell ] Never seen him take a breath!
[ Laughter ]
So I stand in solidarity with you, Peter.
But it's a sign of just how paranoid we've all gotten,
that we hear a few sniffles
and we all turn into virologists.
I mean, hearing a cough on the subway now
is like hearing a twig snap in a horror movie.
[ Laughter ] And, if I show any symptoms
of a cold at home, I have to make up a story,
so my wife doesn't make me stay at a hotel.
"Um, why are you sniffling?"
Um, I was, uh,
doing some cocaine with NYU students?
[ Laughter and applause ]
"You better be telling the truth."
[ Laughter ]
The point is, pandemic life sucks, we all hate it,
but as much as we may be done with COVID,
COVID is not done with us.
That's just the reality.
Thankfully, we have so many more tools
at our disposal now to deal with it,
like vaccines, boosters, high-quality masks,
ventilation, and rapid tests,
which everyone should have access to.
Trying to get your hands on a rapid test right now
is like trying to buy a Tamagotchi in the '90s.
[ Laughter ] And if you don't get that reference,
the '90s were a decade that happened
10 years before you were born.
[ Laughter and applause ]
Before Tom Holland, there was Tam Agotchi.
[ Boisterous laughter and applause ]
That's my Tom Holland!
[ Laughter ]
The new one won't let me feed 'im!
[ Laughter ]
In other developed nations,
rapid tests are all either super cheap and widely available
or provided for free by the government,
which is how it should be here.
Instead, the Biden administration has, somehow,
come up with the worst of all possible options --
by the test yourself,
then get reimbursed by your insurance provider.
-Now, two years into this pandemic
and the thing we needed in month one
is still the thing that we need today --
widespread, easy, rapid testing.
Last week, President Joe Biden announced his plan
to have private insurers cover the cost of at-home tests,
meaning you can buy a test, submit the cost,
and your insurance will reimburse you for it.
-Have you ever tried to get reimbursed
by an insurance provider? There are like
80 pages of forms to fill out and, inevitably,
you get a letter six months later that says...
[ Laughter ]
[ Laughter and applause ]
[ Laughter ]
A situation like this is when it really becomes clear
just how screwed up our for-profit medical system is.
This week, a reporter suggested
the insurance reimbursement system
might be too complicated,
and asked why we can't just provide free tests,
like other countries, and then,
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki
mocked the question by jokingly asking
if the White House should just send free tests out in the mail.
-There are still a lot of countries,
like Germany and the UK and South Korea,
that basically have massive testing,
free of charge or for a nominal fee.
Why can't that be done in the United States?
-Well, I would say, first, you know,
we have eight tests that have been approved by the FDA here
and this effort to push
to ensure insurers -- you're are able to get your --
your tests refunded means 150 million Americans
will be able to get free tests.
Why not just make them free and give them out
and have them available everywhere?
-Should we just send one to every American?
-Yes! [ Laughter ]
You should send a test to every Amer--
I mean, if Pottery Barn can send every American
[ Laughter ] eight catalogs a year,
you should be able to pull off one.
You know what? Maybe we should just outsource this
to Pottery Barn and let them put ads on the swabs.
[ Laughter and applause ]
Seriously, why is that ridiculous?
Other countries with public health systems
are already doing it...
Of course, over there, they're not called rapid tests.
They're called...
[ Laughter ] I know!
I also think that's dumb!
We desperately need easy access to free, rapid testing
for anyone who wants it,
on top of our vaccines, boosters, and masks.
We have so many more tools now than we did back in March 2020,
which is why we don't need lockdowns.
Biden has already ruled out lockdowns, for now,
and I think it's safe to say no one wants to go back to that,
Democrat or Republican.
I don't want to go back to my attic
[ Laughter ] and I certainly don't want to go back to my in-laws' house.
[ Laughter ] Okay, now, real quick,
I need to film an alternate version of that for my in-laws,
and then we'll edit it in and then, this will be
the "Closer Look" we show them. Alright, ready?
I don't want to go back to my attic,
but I wouldn't mind going back to my in-laws' house,
because I love it there.
[ Laughter and applause ] Everyone's super chill
and they always sing karaoke with perfect pitch.
[ Laughter ]
Okay, back to the real "Closer Look."
I don't want to go back to my [bleep] in-laws' house!
[ Laughter and applause ] Thankfully, Biden has
ruled that out, for now,
although, you wouldn't know it from Fox News,
which has been lying for days about Democrats threatening
to shut everything down again over Omicron.
-Democrats are already using this to jam through
their pro-lockdown, anti-freedom agenda.
-They want us to go on shutdown, lockdown, again.
-Then they want to implement
more ridiculous lockdowns.
-They want us to lock down our lives,
with no information,
lock down our kids' lives, with no information.
-The Biden administration is, once again,
locking down the country
and persecuting its perceived political opponents,
otherwise known as the unvaccinated.
So you have to ask yourself, "When will this end?"
Viruses mutate constantly.
That's their nature.
Will every new "Omeecron" variant mean massive new
[ Laughter ] and unconstitutional powers for our political class?
-[ As Carlson ] When will it end?
[ Laughter ] Will every new variant mean
new powers for our political class?
Will they be able to test you, trace you,
come to your house and inject you with a microchip,
hidden in a vaccine, that tracks your movements?
And what that tracking microchip allow them to see
that you went to the animé convention in secret, of course,
[ Laughter ] because you didn't want your friends at Fox News
to know that you're into that kind of thing.
And will they find out about the time you asked Sean Hannity
what he thought of "Dragon Ball Z"
[ Laughter ] and he looked at you like you were crazy
and that hurt your feelings so much
that you ran into the bathroom to cry,
only to realize that you had run into the women's bathroom
[ Laughter ] and were so worried
that someone would see you run out,
that you, instead, removed a ceiling panel
[ Laughter ] and climbed into a heating duct
for the purposes of shimmying back to your office,
not knowing that the duct
wouldn't be strong enough to support your weight,
[ Laughter ] causing you to, mid-shimmy,
collapse through the ceiling, where you landed on top
of Rupert Murdoch's desk while he was sitting at it,
causing him to look up from his soup and yell, "Crikey!"?
[ Laughter ]
Will that happen to you?
Well, I can tell you it will.
Because it happened to me.
[ Laughter ]
Also, I want to revisit that Don Jr. clip from the montage
because he had more to say,
specifically, about Dr. Anthony Fauci.
-If you look at, you know,
let's call it an elf
with a Napoleonic complex, bureaucrat Fauci,
he doesn't know what he's talking about.
He's a bureaucrat.
He's not a good doctor.
He's better at being a bureaucrat.
And, as long as we keep giving that clown
his 15 minutes of fame,
the TV that he so desperately craves,
we're going to be in these lockdown situations forever.
-I'm sorry, he's an elf
[ Laughter ] with a Napoleonic complex?
You're so desperate to look taller,
you stand with your nipples pointed out,
like you're using them as weapons.
[ Laughter ] [ As Don Jr. ] Stay away from me, antifa!
These bad boys will hurt you!
[ Laughter ] Also, I wouldn't call anyone an elf,
when you literally posed for a photo
on a stump in the woods, like a troll who got kicked out
of the Fellowship of the Rings.
[ Laughter and applause ] And, yes,
I'm aware there were no trolls in that fellowship.
That's why they go sit on stumps.
So, Republicans are, as usual,
lying about lockdowns and vaccines.
Instead, they'd rather focus on absurd,
unproven remedies, like hydroxychloroquine
or ingesting bleach, or this new one,
from Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson -- mouthwash.
-I want you to listen
to Republican Senator Ron Johnson
at a town hall just this week.
-Or, even better, don't use mouthwash,
and your bad breath will keep people
six feet away from you at all times.
[ Laughter ] Listerine
explicitly states on its website that its product...
I don't even want to imagine what's next.
Is Titleist going to have to issue a statement
that says...
[ Laughter ]
We have proven tools at our disposal
to protect people from this virus,
but right-wing politicians and media figures
are intent on fearmongering and lying about it.
Santa himself could get vaccinated
and they'd tell you he was forced by a...
-Elf with a Napoleonic complex.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪
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