Sean Hannity Pleads His Fox News Audience to Finally Take COVID Seriously

Sean Hannity implored his Fox News audience to take the coronavirus pandemic seriously during a somewhat surprising deviation from standard fare on Monday night. His comments come as the Delta variant is causing an explosion of cases nationwide and his network is coming under more regular fire from people on both sides of the aisle for increasing vaccine hesitancy.

"Please take COVID seriously. I can't say it enough. Enough people have died. We don't need any more deaths," Hannity said on his primetime series. "Research like crazy, talk to your doctor, your doctors, medical professionals you trust based on your unique medical history, your current medical condition, and you and your doctor make a very important decision for your own safety. Take it seriously."

"I believe in science, I believe in the science of vaccination," he added.

Both Steve Doocy and Bill Hemmer also urged viewers to get vaccinated earlier in the day. While it is both deeply depressing and patently absurd that it's come to this point months after a free vaccine has been readily available to a country coming off its worst year in decades, there's a certain faction who will only listen to what their favorite TV people say. We can talk until we're blue in the face in agreement about Hannity's full body of work — including other comments he made on the show bookending this PSA — but it's no small thing that millions of his devotees heard this from him.

There's a real sense of dread building in the past few weeks about what the next several months are going to look like of vaccination rates don't grow significantly. While this is undoubtably a good and necessary message, one could be forgiven if they feel a bit terrified about the ultimate prognosis if Fox News hosts are sounding the alarm bells in unison.