FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Thursday, October 22, 2020
CONTACT: Liz Doherty
SHOT/CHASER: Dan Forest Throws His Own Advice Out the Window
SHOT: Dan Forest advises that people should avoid shaking hands or doing things in groups during flu season.
- “During flu season, it’s best not to be shaking each other’s hands and best not be doing things we probably shouldn’t do in groups where the flu is prevalent.” – Forest, 4/15/2020
CHASER: Mid-pandemic and mid- flu season, Forest has thrown his own advice out the window:
- Ignoring public health expertise, Forest has held many indoor campaign events with no social distancing or masks during the pandemic. Forest said he and his campaign “plan to shake as many hands as [they] can,” and they’ll continue with in-person fundraisers, adding “it will be a lot more of this.”
LIME: Forest has consistently spread dangerous misinformation during the pandemic, and continued to double down on his claim that “masks don’t work with viruses.”
Politifact, 7/8/2020
- In July, Forest falsely claimed that “masks don’t work with viruses.”
- “While face coverings alone can’t guarantee protection from a virus, recent studies show they do reduce the risk of spreading the virus. And that’s the goal in this pandemic: to stop the spread. So Forest’s claim that masks “do not work” is inaccurate. We rate his claim False.” (Politifact, 7/8/2020)
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