Jim Jordan, Anthony Fauci disagree over whether ‘Real America’ is over COVID-19

That’s Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, who expressed frustrations over the restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, currently in its 18th month and still deadly.

On Tuesday, Jordan enthused over a video from Barstool Sports, which had tweeted about the “absolute electricity” of the University of Wisconsin’s Camp Randall Stadium before the Badgers’ home game against Penn State:

Jordan is an alumnus of Wisconsin, where he wrestled and won two NCAA championships.

The school does not have a coronavirus vaccine mandate, but 88% of the school’s students have been vaccinated, according to a report last week by Wisconsin Public Radio. The school estimated that 92% of its employees were vaccinated, as well, helping to minimize chances that events such as Saturday’s game will become superspreader events.

But Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and one of the top figures in the government’s coronavirus response, had a different reaction to the packed stands — and certainly to Jordan’s characterization of the situation:

That, Fauci said Tuesday night in an interview with MSNBC, is “really the problem, that you can’t wish it away when you have the numbers of infections that you just mentioned a moment ago.”

Fauci added that he hoped “most of the people in that stadium were vaccinated.”

According to Ohio’s COVID-19 tracker, Jordan’s home state reported 1,411 new cases of coronavirus on Tuesday — down from its peak of 6,340 new cases on Aug. 31. Hospitalizations are down significantly. The state has vaccinated approximately 52% of all eligible people. In Wisconsin, according to state data, Madison’s county, Dane, is the state’s most vaccinated, with nearly 70% of the population fully vaccinated and 81%-plus of those 18 and older fully vaccinated.

In some parts of the country, the delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, has seen hospitals experiencing a shortages of intensive-care capacity and hospital beds overall, along with staffing issues in particular among nurses coping with the surge of patients.

Jordan appeared on Fox News Wednesday morning and said, “We want to be Americans and exercise our freedoms like we’re supposed to do in this great country.”