Dr. Drew Says the Media Needs to Put a Sock In It Over the Wuhan Coronavirus: 'I Would Like Them To Shut Up'

FILE – In this Oct. 17, 2008 file photo, Dr. Drew Pinsky, better known as radio and TV personality “Dr. Drew,” poses for a photo at the Westwood One studios in Culver City, Calif. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)

Do you think the media needs to shut up?

If so, you’re on the same page with Dr. Drew.

On Friday, Drew appeared on CBS Sports Radio’s The Pat McAfee Show to discuss media coverage of the pandemic.

He doesn’t like it:

“I hate it. I hate it. I would like them to shut up.”

Clear.

To Drew’s way of thinking, when you take a problem that’s in an early stage of development and describe it as a monster, you set people up to be particularly distressed when it grows:

“I’m remembering now back in the very beginning, what got me sort of mobilized. I was sitting in a local Fox affiliate in New York City, and there was a reporter in Italy going, ‘We have a staggering number of cases! Staggering! We have seven thousand cases!’ And I thought…’You need to shut up. Because this is going to go way higher. What are we going to call a million?”

He’s certainly been singing that tune for a while now. Here’s Drew over a month ago, on Daily Blast Live, reiterating, “This is an overblown press-created hysteria.” He also praised VP Mike Pence and Indiana’s handling of the HIV problem — a good omen as we let the White House team lead:

Back to Friday, Drew referenced the flu, which kills tens of thousands. Yet in that case every year, the press doesn’t go full Freak Out:

“Look — we have 24 million flu cases in this country every year. Thirty thousand deaths. What do you call those numbers? And this is going to be comparable, or worse. Or who knows.”

Therefore, media people, put a sock in it:

“So shut up, ’cause you’re only going to panic people. And they ensued, and are continuing to spin this thing in ways I think are disturbing.”

As relayed by The Daily Caller, the doctor told Pat we should be patting “ourselves on the back for the colossal effort and the sacrifices. And the fact that we’re affecting the curve. We are slowing it down the way we intended. We’re not gonna exceed our resources. We should be congratulating ourselves, not whipping up further panic and chaos. That’s the part I’ve been upset about.”

It’s definitely a different message than we’re getting from some of TV’s talking heads. Switch on CNN and MSNBC and watch Armageddon happen in real time.

Drew also saluted coronavirus task force point man Dr. Anthony Fauci and noted there’s some optimism over hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the virus. But we have to wait on the data:

He’s the perfect combination of clinician — right? He takes care of patients, so he has a sensibility of how these things work in a clinical setting — and he’s a consummate scientist. … [F]auci always falls back on, ‘I have to see the data. … I can’t say anything ’til I see the data.’ For example, there’s a lot of enthusiasm among clinicians about hydroxycholoroquine. … And Fauci, rather than taking any opinion whatsoever, just says, ‘When I see the data, I’ll tell you.’ … And we should have some data, I’m hoping, next week. When they open up some of these studies and let us know, is the chloroquine changing the course of this thing the way we think it might?”

Additionally, he explained that it’s impossible to predict how it’s all gonna go, but there’s nothing wrong with hope: