Fox News' Neil Cavuto's Second Bout With COVID Landed Him In ICU

MENDHAM, NJ — After an unexplained absence lasting multiple weeks, Fox News host Neil Cavuto on Monday revealed he had tested positive for COVID-19 for a second time. However, this time, it landed the Mendham resident in the intensive care unit.

The "Your World" host, who is fully vaccinated but immunocompromised, told his viewers that this time, he contracted a "far more serious strand."

"I did get COVID again — but a far, far more serious strand, what doctors call covid pneumonia," Cavuto said. "It landed me in intensive care for quite a while, and it really was touch and go."

Cavuto has been an advocate for COVID-19 vaccines since he tested positive for the first time last fall, the Washington Post reported. Cavuto is also a cancer survivor who was diagnosed in 1997 with multiple sclerosis, a disease that can cause nerve damage. He also underwent open-heart surgery in 2016, the Post reported.

As of Tuesday, 214.7 million Americans had been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. About 92.8 million have received a booster dose.

A CDC study published Feb. 11 found that booster shots remain highly effective against moderate and severe COVID-19. In fact, a booster dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine is 91 percent effective in preventing a person from being hospitalized during the two months following a booster shot, the study found. After four months, protection fell to 78 percent.

As the omicron variant caused daily cases in the United States to reach unprecedented highs during and after the holidays, some studies found a traditional two-dose vaccine regimen was not enough to protect against the highly contagious variant; however, another CDC study found a third dose revs up the immune system enough to prevent moderately severe and severe disease.

In his Monday broadcast, Cavuto once again gave credit to the vaccine for saving his life.

"Let me be clear: Doctors say had I not been vaccinated at all, I wouldn't be here," Cavuto said.

"The vaccine didn’t cause that," Cavuto continued in reference to theories that the vaccine caused his illness. "… My very compromised immune system did."

While Cavuto is outspoken on his support for vaccines, not all of his Fox News coworkers share his views.

Tucker Carlson, the highest-rated host on the channel, according to CNN, has stoked fear about vaccines and peddled multiple false conspiracy theories about them.

Fox News commentator Tomi Lahren has also sided with Carlson.

"I personally will not get the COVID vaccine, and I personally will not be forced to get it," she said on her Fox Nation streaming show in April, according to the Post. "If you want to get it, by all means, please do. If you want to wear one, two or five masks while driving or walking alone, by all means, please do."

As for why Fox didn't explain Cavuto's absence, the host said the network was honoring his wishes.

"I just felt that I wasn't the story. The stories on this show were and are about you — they're not about me," Cavuto said. "You matter. The news matters."