Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert show COVID's Delta variant isn't the only threat to the Olympics, or the U.S.
The 2020 Olympics, postponed a year by COVID-19, kick off in Tokyo on Friday, Jimmy Kimmel said on Thursday's Tonight Show. "The official motto for this year's Olympics is 'United by Emotion' — and the unofficial motto is 'As of Right Now, We're Still Doing This.'" And "as if all the COVID concerns around the Games aren't bad enough, a bear was spotted inside the softball stadium and it's still on the loose," he said. "What an Olympics this is gonna be: I mean, between the bears and getting a disease, it's like we sent our athletes to a game of 'Oregon Trail.'"
"Last night, Fox News aired a 10-second public service announcement urging viewers to 'get the vaccine,'" Fallon said, "although it didn't help when they ended the PSA by saying: 'Just so you know, this could be the microchip talking.'"
"I have great news about COVID-19 ... is something I wish I could say," Stephen Colbert said at The Late Show. Unfortunately, U.S. cases nearly tripled over the last two weeks. "Come on, America!" he said. "For Pete's sake, how many times do we have to do the same mistakes before the consequences are different?"
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"Most of this increase was caused by the Delta variant, but that's not the only flavor of COVID out there," Colbert said. "Illinois is reporting six times more Gamma variant cases than Delta. Gamma is a variant first identified in Brazil, which makes it easier to detect." He showed a photo of "normal COVID" followed by "the Brazilian." Still, he noted, "there's no reason to worry about any of this if you're vaccinated," even with the panoply of variants.
"The only thing spreading faster than COVID variants is COVID misinformation," and Facebook is cracking down on misinforming groups, Colbert said. "Facebook finds the groups using keywords, but they're having trouble now because some anti-vax groups are changing their names to euphemisms" and using "code words in their posts." He wasn't impressed: "Dancing, beer, pizza, Moana — if you're going to describe something you think is killing everybody, maybe don't use code words that are things that everybody universally loves."
ABC won't pay NBC to use images of the Olympics, Anthony Anderson said on Jimmy Kimmel Live. "But who needs the Olympics when you have footage of people making a fool of themselves on YouTube." He picked a real winner.
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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