On PBS, Former NYT Reporter Argues For 'Public Health Fascism': 'China Made Itself Virus Free'

There was much media angst over Donald Trump declaring he would be a dictator on “Day One” of a second term in office to promote border security and oil drilling. Scrape off the spicy language, and it sounds more like the standard executive orders every president issues upon taking office, as even a Trump-hostile PBS Amanpour & Co. guest admitted last week. Will the same press also cringe over former New York Times science reporter Donald McNeil, proudly calling himself a “public health fascist” and recommending even more draconian measures to fight a future pandemic?

McNeil was unfairly fired from the Times during the COVID pandemic, a firestorm ignited by gossip from a “woke” bunch of privileged high school brats he’d chaperoned on a ill-advised paper-sponsored trip to Peru. But at least Times readers have been spared his illiberal public health advice, like his 2012 defense of Cuba’s quarantine of anyone who tested positive for HIV. It almost makes one welcome his COVID-beat replacement Apoorva Mandavilli, who mangled pandemic math in the alarmist direction and accused lab leak proponents of racism.

• More at: NewsBusters - PBS: Ex-NY Times Reporter Argues for ‘Public Health Fascism’: ‘China Made Itself Virus-Free’
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/clay-waters/2024/01/25/pbs-ex-ny-times-reporter-argues-public-health-fascism-china-made