'Nope. Not happening. Never again,' host Dagen McDowell said in response to media figures promoting public masking again
Media ramps up calls to wear masks: 'Time to bring them out again'
'Outnumbered' panelists react to the renewed calls for Americans to wear masks as COVID cases are on the rise.
The hosts of Fox News Channel’s "Outnumbered" blasted the mainstream media for trying to urge society to return to masking to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Despite the pandemic being considered over and the U.S. government ending the public health emergency around it earlier this year, several big media outlets have pushed stories suggesting that masking may be necessary as cases of COVID-19 tick up.
In recent days, MSNBC ran a segment on kids masking to prevent the spread of the virus at the beginning of the new school year, PBS had one about wearing masks in crowded areas to prevent the spread, and CBS Mornings warned about the "Summer COVID Spike" that may happen due to people letting "their guard down" and forgetting to mask.
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Fox News Contributor Dr. Nicole Saphier said it's time for the media to move on from pushing public masking. (Fox News)
After playing a reel of the COVID alarmist news stories, "Outnumbered" host Dagen McDowell gave a simple rebuttal to the media’s concern.
"Nope. Not happening. Never again," she declared.
Fox News contributor Dr. Nicole Saphier followed McDowell, explaining that masks should only be necessary when people are around "immunocompromised" persons.
The physician told the panel, "Anyone who is immunocompromised, or if you work with people who are immunocompromised, those are the people in appropriate settings [that] should consider wearing a high quality mask, like an N-95, not a single layer of cloth or surgical mask."
"Those don’t actually work as we’ve seen by many, many studies," Saphier said, adding, "But to actually say, you know, to wear masks again in the house and just being in public spaces, we have to move on."
The doctor explained that "the reason you have an uptick in cases right now is not because you did something wrong, it’s because for the last several years, we’ve seen an uptick in cases in the winter, and we also see one in the end of summer. This is just a normal cycle of this respiratory virus."
A Health Care Worker seals a coronavirus swab after testing at the Pro Health Urgent Care coronavirus testing site on April 30, 2020 in Wantagh, New York. ((Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images))
She affirmed that "people just need to accept that this is it moving forward."
Saphier concluded, "The bottom line, COVID is not what it was three years ago and we have to move forward with this. This doesn’t mean that you have to quarantine, it’s just if you’re sick, stay home."
McDowell bashed the media folks pushing for masking again, saying, "When I hear those people on TV, I go, ‘La la la la.’ I don’t listen to them."
The other panelists, including author and Fox News contributor Raymond Arroyo, questioned why individuals are still using masks in public.
Arroyo mentioned seeing a woman on an airplane wearing a mask she "pulled out of her purse" that "looked about five years old," and mentioned how she was pulling it down to talk and to drink.
"What’s the point?" Arroyo asked.
Turning to Saphier he later added, "I think we have to – as you said – move past it and realize COVID today is very different than it was a few years ago."
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Gabriel Hays is an associate editor for Fox News Digital.
