One of the unintended consequences of the coronavirus crisis is that it has shone a light on who exactly in this country is an empathetic, feeling human being and who is a complete and total sociopath—or, at least, who’s willing to go on TV shows and various other forums and say completely sociopathic things. The president, of course, has cemented his status as an individual completely lacking in a conscience, but he’s far from alone. In March, for example, Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick told Fox News that old people should volunteer to die to save the economy. This month, Indiana congressman Trey Hollingsworth sat down for an interview with WIBC radio host Tony Katz and said, of people dying as a result of reopening the economy ASAP, “It is policymakers’ decision to put on our big boy and big girl pants and say, ‘This is the lesser of these two evils.’” And on Tuesday, Mehmet Oz, aka Dr. Oz, told Sean Hannity that we should consider sacrificing 2–3% of the nation’s children in order to get back to everyday life. Somehow, his full statement is even more disturbing and worthy of a “what the absolute fuck.”

Asked by Hannity to “help us,” Oz responded: “First, we need our mojo back. Let’s start with things that are really critical to the nation where we think we might be able to open without getting into a lot of trouble. I tell ya, schools are a very appetizing opportunity. I just saw a nice piece in The Lancet arguing the opening of schools may only cost us 2 to 3%, in terms of total mortality. Any, you know, any life is a life lost, but…that might be a trade-off some folks would consider.”

So, obviously the most horrifying part of that comment was the casual way in which he offered that sending 2–3% of children to their deaths is an acceptable trade-off to getting people back to regular life. (Assuming Oz was talking about reopening all schools, and included daycares in his analysis, we’re conservatively talking about roughly 1.5 million children dying, based on there being approximately 74.1 million kids under the age of 18 in the United States.) But also what the hell is up with the use of the word “appetizing”? Did he momentarily forget that we’re talking about people losing their lives from a virus and not by beating eaten? Did he forget to have a snack before going on air? After all this is over he should probably be asked to provide some answers there.

Anyway! Oz’s take did not go over great with people who take issue with millions of children dying, and while the man is no stranger to robust criticism, apparently the blowback got so bad that he felt compelled to issue an “apology,“ or whatever category this collection of words falls under.