Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked Dr. Rochelle Walensky three times whether
she would publicly contradict false statements made by Supreme Court Justice
Sonia Sotomayor, and all three times Walensky responded by pushing COVID-19
vaccinations for anyone who was eligible to get one.

Walensky, who serves as director of the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC), joined Baier on �Fox News Sunday� to discuss everything
from the CDC�s newly-relaxed guidance on testing and isolation to the Supreme
Court�s oral arguments on President Joe Biden�s vaccine mandates for health
care workers and for corporations that employ more than 100 people � and
Baier did not hesitate to press Walensky on apparently false claims Sotomayor
made during those oral arguments.

Baier began with a direct quote from Sotomayor, who claimed, �We have over
100,000 children, which we�ve never had before, in serious condition and many
on ventilators.�

�What we can find from Friday suggest there are fewer than 3500 current
pediatric hospitalizations from COVID-19. Is that true?� Baier asked.

�Yeah, but here�s what I can tell you about our pediatric hospitalizations
now,� Walensky replied, going on to say that the majority of hospitalized
children were unvaccinated and of those who were not eligible for the
vaccine, the majority had gotten COVID-19 from their unvaccinated family
members. �First of all, the vast majority of children who are in the hospital
are unvaccinated, and for those children who are not eligible for
vaccination, we do know that they are most likely to get sick with COVID if
their family members aren�t vaccinated, so the most important thing we can do
for those children to keep them out of the hospital is to vaccinate them and
to vaccinate their family members around them.�

�Understood, but the number is not 100,000, it�s roughly 3500 in hospitals
now,� Baier pushed back.

Walensky agreed, but quickly pivoted to data suggesting those numbers were
increasing.

�Do you have a number of children on ventilators?� Baier asked.

�I do not have that off the top of my head,� she said, but immediately
redirected to the vaccine once again, saying that being vaccinated would
reduce the number of children who needed to be put on ventilators and the
number who might deal with other possible complications of the virus.

�The risk of death or serious illness in children is still very small,
right?� Baier asked then.

�Comparatively the risk of death is small,� Walensky agreed, adding, �But of
course, you know, children aren�t supposed to die, so if we have a child
who�s been � who is sick with COVID-19, we want to make sure � we want to
protect them of course.�

�But I�m talking from your data, ages 15 to 24, for example, the risk of
death is at 0.001%,� Baier persisted. �I guess what I�m getting at in this
opening is that the Supreme Court is in the process of dealing with this big
issue about mandates, and do you feel responsibility as the CDC director to
correct a very big mischaracterization by one of the Supreme Court justices?�

�Do you feel a responsibility as the CDC director to correct a very
big mischaracterization by one of the Supreme Court justices?�

WALENSKY: �Yeah, um, here�s what I�ll tell you�my responsibility is
to provide guidance and recommendations to protect the American
people.� pic.twitter.com/tlZcL7tux7

� RNC Research (@RNCResearch) January 9, 2022

Walensky did not make the correction, instead pivoting once more to the data
on how vaccination impacted the probability that one might need
hospitalization or even die fro COVID-19.

�What my responsibility is is to provide guidance and recommendations to
protect the American people. Those recommendations strongly recommend
vaccination for our children above the age of 5 and boosting for everyone
above the age of 18 if they are eligible,� she said.

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Let's go Brandon!