Physician David Drew Pinsky, commonly referred to as Dr. Drew, hammered the media early last month for over-sensationalizing the coronavirus outbreak and doubled down on his remarks late last week.

During an interview early last month on Daily Blast Live, Dr. Drew said, “We are not overreacting; the press is overreacting, and it makes me furious.”

“The press should not be reporting medical stories as though they know how to report it,” Dr. Drew continued. “If we have a pandemic, I won’t know how to tell that we’re actually having a pandemic because everything is an emergency. People that are infectious disease specialists, the CDC, the epidemiologist[s], need to take this very seriously. The press needs to shut up because you’re more likely to die of influenza right now.”

Dr. Drew appeared on the same show late last week where he doubled down on his comments and threw water on the notion that Vice President Mike Pence was not capable of leading the Coronavirus Task Force.

“Let me frame it this way: we have in the United States 24 million cases of flu-like illness, 180,000 hospitalizations, 16,000 dead from influenza,” Dr. Drew said. “Why is that not being reported? Why isn’t the message: get your flu shot?”

WATCH:

TRANSCRIPT:

DAILY BLAST LIVE: So, Drew are we overreacting?

DR. DREW: Yes, yes.

DAILY BLAST LIVE: I’m hearing this from doctors left and right.

DR. DREW: Yes and we are not overreacting, the press is overreacting, and it makes me furious. The press should not be reporting medical stories as though they know how to report it. If we have a pandemic I won’t know how to tell that we’re actually having a pandemic because everything is an emergency. People that are infectious disease specialists, the CDC, the epidemiologist, need to take this very seriously. The press needs to shut up because you’re more likely to die of influenza right now.

…

DR. DREW: I 100% agree with that guy.

DAILY BLAST LIVE: So you still Dr. Drew, you still feel as passionate as you did a couple of weeks ago?

DR. DREW: Let me frame it this way: we have in the United States 24 million cases of flu-like illness, 180,000 hospitalizations, 16,000 dead from influenza. Why is that not being reported? Why isn’t the message: get your flu shot? We have zero deaths from coronavirus, we have almost no cases. It’s coming here. That community transmitted case you purported on from UC Davis, that means that it’s far milder than we know it is and there are people walking around out there with the virus that don’t even know they have it, it’s so mild. So, it’s going to be much more widespread than we knew, it’s going to be much milder than we knew, the 1.7 % fatality rate is going to fall. Where was the press during the Mediterranean corona outbreak where the fatality rate was 41%? If they wanted to get crazed about something, why didn’t they get crazed about MERS or SARS? This is an overblown press created hysteria. Now, the countries China, United States, Europe, are responding appropriately and very diligently. We’re going to contain this thing. We’ve already got a vaccine in study right now in human subjects. So, this thing is well in hand, President Trump is absolutely correct he allocated $2.5 billion dollars for this. Chuck Schumer asked for $8 billion, my response is, hey man we got a homeless problem in Southern California and in Denver, would you please give us some of that $8 billion and forget about the coronavirus?

DAILY BLAST LIVE: To my point and I’m gonna challenge you on this, do you really believe that Pence is the right person to handle this considering how he mishandled the HIV epidemic in 2015 with the needle exchange program which one study said actually contributed to more deaths?

DR. DREW: I don’t know what they’re talking about. We used to point at the way Indiana responded to the opiate of the HIV epidemic as the model for the country. I don’t know what they’re talking about. The only reason I felt comfortable with Pence as vice-president was I was aware of his track record in Indiana in handling these serious problems and they handle them better than most states did, almost any other states. So, I don’t know what the hell people are talking about. That is fake news, we used to look at Indiana as a, as an appropriate response to the opiate epidemic we’re really responding to at the time, and they also had a massive effect on HIV and AIDS. Yes, it took everybody a while to respond properly to it, but they really took care of business in Indiana, so I have no idea what people are talking about. Whether Pence is the right person, look the right people are Anthony Fauci of the CDC. Dr. Fauci will tell you what’s going on, when you need to worry … that guy’s been on top of infectious disease for 30 years. When there’s a problem, he will let us know and he’s been saying exactly what I’ve been saying the whole way. Look to him, not me, and not even Vice President Pence, look at guys like Anthony Fauci whose responsibility is to contain these things.