Breaking ranks with celebrities, Bill Maher slams coronavirus panic, urges viewers: 'Go outside.'

Bill Maher broke ranks with his fellow celebrities on Friday by slamming what he derided as mass panic over COVID-19, arguing that "the vast majority of people" who contract the disease recover from it and claiming that Americans have become "scared of [their] own hands" over the course of the outbreak. 

In a rant by turns profanity-laden and pleading, Maher said the mass culture of sterilization, hand-sanitization and other health measures undertaken by most Americans in recent months "can't become the new normal."

"The key to beating COVID isn't dining through glass, or never going to another concert or ballgame again. It's your immune system," he argued. 

Scientists and public health experts have warned that the novelty of the coronavirus, which appears to have arisen in November of last year, means that human beings' immune systems are not familiar with the infection and thus may struggle to counteract the disease. 

Maher dismissed such claims.

"You hear people say, 'Covid-19 is a new virus, so the human immune system doesn't know how to handle it. ... Of course it does. That's why the vast majority of people who've had it either recovered or didn't even know they had it," he said, adding that protection should be given to people whose immune systems "can't do the job." 

The tirade stands in contrast to the urgings of many celebrities in the country, who for well over a month have been urging their fellow Americans to stay home. Actors such as Robert De Niro, Ben Stiller, Danny DeVito, Debra Messing, Will Ferrel and others have all taken to social media to beg Americans to remain in their homes during the pandemic. 

In contrast, Maher – who delivered the monologue from his home in Beverly Hills, where he has been broadcasting under a stay-at-home order – urged viewers to: "Do something nice for your immune system: Go outside." 

"[G]et some fresh air, and Vitamin D, and break a sweat," he said. "You can't keep all the pathogens out."