Late night hosts are baffled anyone chooses horse dewormer over COVID-19 vaccines

"We've been off for two weeks, and while we were gone there was continuing plague, war, floods, fires — it's like the end times, or as they're now known, the times," a mustachioed Stephen Colbert said on Tuesday's Late Show. Hurricane Ida blew down Louisiana and drowned the Northeast, and "you know the climate crisis is bad when the once-in-a-century global pandemic is the second-biggest story of the day."

COVID-19 cases are more than double what they were a year ago, and "unfortunately, thanks to fear-mongering and misinformation, a lot of people still aren't getting vaccinated," Colbert said. "But don't worry about the anti-vaxxers being unprotected, because they have found a new drug that also does not protect them. It's called ivermectin, which is a horse dewormer. So you'll probably still get COVID, but on the bright side, you could win the Preakness."

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Peter Weber, The Week US

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.