The problem, however, is that Ryan sits on the board of Fox Corp., the parent company of Fox News — the favored outlet of President Donald Trump and his administration — which has been actively spreading misinformation about this very danger, both by downplaying the risks and also using it as an opportunity to double down on xenophobia.

Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel has been a prolific source of misinformation. On March 6, he dismissed the World Health Organization as “a bunch of alarmists” and “saber rattlers” for concerns about COVID-19, and he insisted that “there’s no reason to believe it's actually more problematic or deadly than influenza.” (The current estimates are that the virus is at least 10 times more lethal than the regular flu.) By March 11, Siegel had changed his stance somewhat, acknowledging, “I think it’s more contagious than we thought originally.”

Another Fox News medical contributor, Dr. Nicole Saphier, said this week that the WHO’s declaration of a pandemic is a mere formality that “means nothing,” instead praising Trump’s economic leadership: “And I think it is great that we have a president who has historically done wonderful for our economy, who is actually going to continue to focus on that while he lets the specialists and the experts focus on containing the coronavirus.”

Additionally, multiple Fox hosts have written off COVID-19 as being just like the flu — echoing Trump’s incorrect pronouncements and even leading him to make even more of them.

And just this morning, Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt boasted that it’s now “the safest time to fly” because the airports and planes are empty.