RUSH: Linda, Boca Raton, Florida, glad you waited. You’re up next on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Nice to talk to you.

RUSH: Thank you. Same here.

CALLER: Listen. I notice we don’t hear from Biden very often, but when he does speak — and today Obama was in Florida talking about it — they keep saying Trump totally screwed up his response to the pandemic. And I just think that’s really mean and hurtful to millions of people who are trying to beat this thing. People are keeping their families safe, their communities safe. And everybody’s working really hard, and they’re basically telling us we all did a terrible job at it, along with Trump. It’s not very nice. What do you say, Rush?

RUSH: Well, I think they’re politicizing everything, and this is a great example. You know, you’re thinking that what they’re saying is hurtful to people who are doing their best try to help people with COVID, people who have COVID trying to manage it and recover from it, and here these guys are out saying it’s a mess because of Donald Trump, Donald Trump doesn’t care, COVID’s bad because Trump doesn’t know how to manage it.

I heard Obama today when he was speaking to these cars that are honking their horns at him. And he was saying (doing Obama impression), “And Joe, Joe will have a plan on the pandemic. Joe will fix the pandemic. Just gonna happen. He’s just gonna wave a magic wand and fix the pandemic.” He said everything but “wave the magic wand.”

What’s Biden gonna do? Biden doesn’t know jack about this. It’s a virus. There is no fix. You know one of the biggest problems that there has been in this whole COVID thing is that we cannot address it maturely. It’s a virus. Do you realize how many viruses we have a cure for? You could basically count ’em on one hand. It’s the nature of a virus. We don’t have vaccines for the vast majority. Got polio, but, folks, it really isn’t very many.

We don’t have a flu vaccine. Everybody thinks we do because we have flu shots. But even with the flu shots — see, this a great contrast here. Even with flu shots, the number of people who die every flu season is stunning. It is shockingly high. It’s greater numbers than people are dying of COVID. But why is there no panic? Why is there no demand that we shut down the U.S. economy every flu season? Why is there no demand that we shut down restaurants, bars, gyms, porno houses, you name it.

Why is there no effort made to shot down the U.S. economy every flu season? Well, obviously the answer is because we have adapted. We have accepted that a certain number of people are gonna get sick, a certain percentage of those are going to become fatalities. We have adapted. We have accepted it. We also have a flu shot. So we’ve given ourselves this psychological heads-up that we’ve got a chance against this thing.

With COVID-19, we don’t have anything yet. We don’t have a vaccine. We don’t have a COVID-19 shot. We got nothing. We’re close. We’re really close. We’ve got some great therapeutics. Do you know what’s happening with COVID-19? The death rate is plummeting. The mortality rate is plummeting. If you look at the latest mortality rates, better yet, look at survivability number. And in virtually every case except for seasoned citizens who have certain illnesses, except for them, the survivability number is 99%, 99.1%, 99.4%.

You’d almost ask yourself, why do we need a vaccine? If 99% of the people who get this recover from it, then why do we even need a vaccine? It’s a legitimate question. Well, COVID is its own beast right now because it has been politicized. The flu has not been politicized, folks. The swine flu was not politicized, but COVID is. And that’s the big difference. That’s how we draw the lines of differentiation between this virus and others.

The fact of the matter is, we Americans do not cower in the corner in fear. We do not run away. We do not shut down. We do not hide, except we have for this. Because they created mass panic at the beginning of this: 2.2 million could die in the first six months if we don’t do anything. Oh, my God!

Then they announced a shutdown and everybody goes along with it. It’s like Trump says. And he catches hell for this. He says you can’t retreat to the basement. You can’t retreat to a room in the White House. You can’t lock yourself away, particularly if you are president. There’s a job. There are things that have to be done ever day.

You cannot lock yourself away, like Biden has been doing. Now, Biden’s in the high risk group, so in his case he might have legitimate reasons for doing so. But the fact is that that’s not how we Americans deal with it. We never have until this has come along, and it’s precisely because of how this has been politicized.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Could not this Obama rally today that he had in Orlando…? Couldn’t we call that a fossil fuel rally?

I mean, you have a bunch of trucks and cars show up? What is that? “Well, Rush, it’s because of COVID-19! People are very much afraid of getting COVID.” Oh, I understand! So you’re gonna show up a fossil fuel rally, all these cars. Gonna have the cars running out there ’cause it’s very hot out there. Gotta be air-conditioning on. Gotta have the cars. It’s Orlando, for crying out loud.

A fossil fuel rally sponsored by Barack Hussein Obama.