Ted Nugent says that he has tested positive for COVID-19.
The outspoken conservative rocker broke the news of his diagnosis in a Facebook Live stream earlier today (Monday, April 19).
“I’ve got an announcement to make,” Nugent said. “Everybody told me that I should not announce this.
“I have had flu symptoms for the last ten days. I thought I was dying. Just a clusterfuck.
“I was tested positive today. I got the Chinese shit. I’ve got a stuffed up head, body aches. My God, what a pain in the ass. I literally could hardly crawl out of bed the last few days… So I was officially tested positive for COVID-19 today.”
Nugent went on to say that he is “homebound, i.e. quarantined” while he is recovering from the disease.
Earlier this month, Ted made headlines when he suggested the novel coronavirus is referred to as COVID-19 because there have been 18 other coronaviruses. Nugent also once again repeated a narrative pushed by conservative media and disputed by health experts that suggests the official death count from the coronavirus is inflated.
“They claim five hundred thousand people have died from COVID-19,” he said in a previous Facebook Live stream. “Bullshit. I believe that medical examiners in all 50 states have gone, ‘I put down on the death certificate that he died of asphyxiation, but they made me put COVID.’ ‘Well, this guy was stabbed to death, but they made me put down COVID.’ ‘This guy was run over by a tandem gravel truck doing a four-wheel drift and the crows be pecking at your flesh, but they made me put down COVID-19.'”
In December, Nugent said that he would refuse to be vaccinated against the new coronavirus and he railed against pharmaceutical companies and their development of the vaccine. “A vaccine that was authorized in four months compared to every other vaccine that took years of adequate testing. Have you seen what’s in it?” he said earlier this month.
Nugent has repeatedly expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of face masks during the pandemic and has mocked those who wear them, despite that both the CDC and World Health Organization have urged their universal use.
Leading up to the 2020 presidential election, Nugent teamed up with Donald Trump Jr. on the campaign trail.
Ted has called Donald Trump “the greatest president in our lifetime,” and has said that the billionaire real estate mogul represents “the heart and soul of the best American families out there.”
