Trump supporters revolt against contact tracing -- as scientists say its the best way to safely reopen the economy

Supporters of President Donald Trump want the economy to reopen amid the COVID-19 pandemic that so far has killed nearly 100,000 Americans.

But as The Daily Beast's Will Sommer reports, many of these same Trump supporters are already revolting against contact tracing, which scientists say is the best way to safely reopen the economy.

Two such Trump supporters are Andy and John Schlafly, the sons of the late right-wing anti-feminist icon Phyllis Schlafly who recently wrote a column attacking conservative Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for funding a test-and-trace program instead of simply flooding the state with hydroxychloroquine, the unproven COVID-19 treatment that several studies have found to be ineffective at combating the disease.

"The $295 million that Abbott is spending on contact tracing could have purchased HCQ treatments for half of the entire State of Texas, to reopen the state without the need for oppressive monitoring," they argued.

DeAnna Lorraine Tesoriero, a failed GOP congressional candidate and a QAnon conspiracy theorist, recently went so far as to ask her followers to not get tested for COVID-19 -- because she feared that contact tracers would reach out to her if they tested positive.

"She also appears to misunderstand contact tracing, claiming that contact tracers go through phone 'contact' lists, rather than in-person contacts," writes Sommer, who chalks up Tesoriero's anti-contact tracing rant to "ignorance."

And Fox News host Laura Ingraham even went so far as to compare people working as contact tracers to radical French Jacobins intent on overturning the American Revolution.

Read the whole report here.