Ted Nugent has once again said that masks don’t really work.
The outspoken conservative rocker, who battled COVID-19 four months ago, made those comments during his YouTube livestream earlier today (Monday, August 23).
“When someone tells you ‘wear a mask,’ and the overwhelming evidence from the overwhelming health professionals are they don’t work,” he said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). “You know your breath comes through the mask. Because every hunting season, in the beautiful winter wonderland of Michigan, it’s freezing — it’s below freezing, below zero — when I’m in my tree stand in the sacred Michigan swamps. And I’ve got these heavy masks on that are supposed to stop the cold from getting into your teeth. But you know what came out of my masks while I was hunting? My breath. So when people tell me to wear a mask to reduce the spread of your breath, I go, ‘Except that masks don’t do that.’ I didn’t have to go to mask college to determine that; I just lived a conscientious, attentive, situational awareness orgy life where I pay attention to reality.”
Nugent also criticized the “American Marxist government” for wanting to mandate masks in classrooms, saying face coverings “don’t work and they’re dangerous to [the children’s] health.”
According to the FDA, masks may help prevent people who have COVID-19 from spreading the virus to others. The CDC has guidance for wearing masks. Wearing a face mask may limit exposure to respiratory droplets and large particles and may help prevent people who have COVID-19 from spreading the virus.
If worn properly, face masks, surgical masks, or respirators may reduce the chance of spreading a COVID-19 infection between you and those around you.
FDA-cleared surgical masks and respirators have been used by health care personnel for years and have been worn in health care facilities during extended procedures without harm to the wearer.
Last month, Ted said that he wouldn’t take the COVID-19 vaccine because the vaccinations that are available in the United States are “experimental shots.” He explained: “I think the Nuremberg trials [a series of military tribunals held after World War II to convict Nazis of their war crimes, including six million Jews and other minorities for medical trials] proved that no man, no Nazi or people who try to be Nazis can force anybody to take any medicine or experiment on human beings with untried medicines.”
In April, Nugent talked about the darkest days of his battle with COVID-19, saying that he had “never been so scared” in his entire life. The 72-year-old pro-gun activist, who had previously claimed the virus was “not a real pandemic,” said: “It was really scary. I didn’t think I was gonna make it. I literally couldn’t function for about 20 hours, and then they came and they rescued me… The six-foot-two, 225-pound headache [this time] was like nothing I have ever experienced. I mean, from my tip of my toes to the top of my hair, I literally was dizzy and weak and struggled to get up to go to the bathroom. And I would lay in the bathtub a couple of times a day with the water as hot as I could take it just to divert.”
Ted also said that he was being treated for COVID-19 by a group of doctors who made a video last year calling for the use of hydroxychloroquine to battle the novel coronavirus, despite warnings from public health experts. Nugent went on to detail his clinical management of COVID-19, saying he was taking hydroxychloroquine, “a proven drug for 65 years,” as well as ivermectin, “another proven drug.”
Hydroxychloroquine is the malaria drug pushed by then-president Donald Trump that proved ineffective against COVID-19. In April 2020, the Food and Drug Administration issued a safety warning, saying the drugs could cause heart-rhythm problems and warning they should be used only in the hospital setting or in clinical trials.
Ivermectin, an antiparasitic drug used to treat several neglected tropical diseases in humans is also used in veterinary medicine. According to The Washington Post, the Food and Drug Administration said at least three people were hospitalized in February after taking the veterinary formulation. It warned that high doses can cause allergic reactions, seizures, liver injury and even death.
In the past, Nugent, a staunch Donald Trump supporter, had referred to the virus as a “leftist scam to destroy” America’s 45th president. He had also repeated a narrative pushed by conservative media and disputed by health experts that suggests the official death count from the coronavirus is inflated.
