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Where Marjorie Taylor Greene’s False Claim About COVID-19 And Obesity Came From
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Jul. 28, 2021, at 11:26 AM


WHERE MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE’S FALSE CLAIM ABOUT COVID-19 AND OBESITY CAME FROM

By Kaleigh Rogers

Filed under Say What?




Alex Wong / Getty Images

This is the latest edition of our column that excavates the origins of public
figures’ factually dubious comments. We explain what their claims are referring
to, the evidence (or lack thereof) behind them and where they sprang from in the
first place.


WHO SAID WHAT …

On July 19, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia tweeted the
following: “The controversial #COVID19 vaccines should not be forced on our
military for a virus that is not dangerous for non-obese people and those under
65. With 6,000 vax related deaths and many concerning side effects reported, the
vax should be a choice not a mandate for everyone.” Because her post contained
several false statements, Twitter labeled it “misleading” and issued a 12-hour
ban on her account for violating the service’s COVID-19 misleading information
policy. Greene’s claims that there have been 6,000 “vax related” deaths and that
COVID-19 is “not dangerous” for people who aren’t obese or over 65 are both
inaccurate. Among the more than 163 million people who have gotten the COVID-19
vaccine in the U.S., 6,207 deaths1

From Dec. 14, 2020, through July 19, 2021.

have been reported according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
but there is no evidence those were “vax related deaths.” And while obesity and
old age are risk factors for COVID-19, they are not the only ones, and the
disease is still dangerous for people without those risk factors.




SOME BACKGROUND …

Since the earliest days of the pandemic, researchers have been studying which
kinds of comorbidities can make someone more likely to have a severe case of
COVID-19 that could lead to hospitalization or death. After a year and a half,
it’s clear obesity or old age does make someone more susceptible. But so do lots
of other conditions. The CDC lists 17 categories, including cancer, pregnancy
and chronic lung diseases. But otherwise healthy people can also become
seriously ill from COVID-19, not to mention die from it. To claim that the novel
coronavirus is “not dangerous” for anyone who isn’t obese or over 65 is wildly
inaccurate. And focusing on obesity as though it were the only risk factor for
severe COVID-19 is a trend among right-wing communities that combines two
parallel threads in online subcultures: the anti-vax community’s belief that a
healthy lifestyle and one’s natural immune system are as effective as
vaccination in preventing disease and the right-wing troll culture’s long
fixation on fat shaming.

In a press conference about the Twitter ban, Greene tried to clarify her
statement, saying she “was talking about the highest amount of deaths, the
highest risk factor” and that “78 percent of people that were hospitalized and
died were obese.” That stat is based on a CDC study from March, but it comes
with some caveats. First, this figure includes people who are considered obese
and people who are considered overweight. Second, 73.6 percent of Americans age
20 or over are considered overweight or obese, according to the CDC. While the
numbers for people with obesity are still higher among COVID-19 patients who
were hospitalized, needed a ventilator or died, the stat Greene cited is a bit
like surveying COVID-19 cases at a sorority house and finding that 100 percent
of the hospitalizations occurred among women. And that’s not even taking into
account that the measurement used to diagnose obesity — the body mass index — is
flawed, at best.

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There is no denying that obesity is a risk factor for more severe COVID-19
infections. Compared with people with a healthy weight, obese people who
contract COVID-19 are 113 percent more likely to be hospitalized, 74 percent
more likely to be put in intensive care and 48 percent more likely to die,
according to a meta-analysis published in August in the journal Obesity Reviews.
But obesity is not the only, or even necessarily the highest, risk factor for
more severe COVID-19 infections. Smokers, for instance, have a 40 to 50 percent
higher risk of severe disease or death from COVID-19 compared with nonsmokers,
according to the World Health Organization. People diagnosed with Parkinson’s
disease who contract COVID-19 have a 30 percent higher risk of death than people
without Parkinson’s, according to a University of Iowa study published in
September. And pregnant women who get COVID-19 are 70 percent more likely to die
than those who aren’t pregnant, according to the CDC.

But Greene didn’t tweet that people who don’t smoke, aren’t pregnant or don’t
have Parkinson’s disease have nothing to fear from COVID-19. She specifically
singled out obesity, something many right-wing communities online have done
since the start of the pandemic. 


WHERE THE COMMENT CAME FROM …

A common refrain in this online community is that the only people at risk for
severe COVID-19 infections are those who are considered either overweight or
obese. Occasionally, other medical risk factors are mentioned, but there seems
to be a particular focus on obesity. On patriots.win, a forum for supporters of
former President Donald Trump, there are dozens of posts about obesity being a
risk factor for COVID-19, many of which are scrutinizing news reports of deaths
to give an armchair diagnosis of the victims. “The vaccine would not have saved
her son. He’s obese and looks unhealthy,” said one post sharing a screengrab of
a Daily Mail article about an Alabama woman who regretted not having her son,
who died of COVID-19, vaccinated. “Vulnerable remain vulnerable even with
vaccine,” the post claims.  

related: Where Trump’s Conspiracy Theory About Who Shot Ashli Babbitt Came From
Read more. »

After the CDC published its finding that 78 percent of hospitalized COVID-19
patients were considered overweight or obese, this statistic became a frequent
(and often misquoted) datapoint in right-wing and anti-vax communities online.
In May, Jordan Sather, a QAnon influencer, shared a video with his tens of
thousands of followers on the messaging app Telegram of New York City Mayor Bill
de Blasio promoting vaccinations. Many responded with inaccurate quips about
COVID-19 affecting only obese people. “They know that obese was 90% of the
reason people were in the hospital for COVID?! I guess they don’t believe in the
science,” one follower wrote. “Aren’t 80 percent of all C19 deaths from obese
people? Hmmm…” wrote another.

There’s a long history of right-wing groups fat-shaming people online. To wit:
An appreciable contingent of subscribers to the now-banned subreddit
r/fatpeoplehate — which existed only to mock and criticize people who are
overweight in the most vitriolic terms possible — moved over to the
now-also-banned subreddit r/The_Donald, where Trump supporters posted right-wing
memes and discussions. Of course, fat-shaming online is not limited to
right-wing trolls. It’s incredibly widespread, and many on the left are just as
guilty of it — consider House Speaker Nancy Pelosi publicly fat-shaming Trump on
live television, or the droves of internet users who have criticized measures to
prioritize obese people for the COVID-19 vaccine, or reward vaccination with
free goodies like Krispy Kreme doughnuts. But it does hold a particularly
pernicious and prevalent role in right-wing communities online. The fixation on
obesity as if it were the only, or most important, risk factor for severe
COVID-19 infections is just the latest in right-wing trolls’ longstanding
tradition of attacking overweight people online.

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FOOTNOTES

 1. From Dec. 14, 2020, through July 19, 2021.

Kaleigh Rogers is FiveThirtyEight’s technology and politics reporter.


COMMENTS



Filed under

COVID-19 (435 posts) Coronavirus (408) COVID-19 Vaccine (52) Marjorie Taylor
Greene (4) Say What? (4)

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