EXPOSED: NBC Regular Guest Dr. Joseph Fair Who Was Hospitalized for COVID-19 Doesn’t Have The Antibodies

Dr. Fair himself took to Twitter to address the controversy.

In a pair of tweets, Dr. Fair refered to his "undiagnosed mystery," yet NBC broadcast his hospitalization confidently as a case of COVID-19.

See Dr. Fair's tweets below:

Though Dr. Fair has addressed it, NBC has yet to issue any sort of correction.

The Today show website, however, which is owned by NBC, did publish an article confirming that Dr. Fair NEVER had COVID-19:

Weeks after he was hospitalized with what his doctors assumed was the coronavirus, NBC News contributor and virologist Dr. Joseph Fair, Ph.D., M.P.H., said his recent antibody test has come back negative.

He said his earlier illness "remains an undiagnosed mystery" in a tweet on Tuesday.

"Symptomatically, yes, I thought I had COVID," Fair told TODAY. "When I got the antibody results, I was even more confused. What would have caused almost identical symptoms and outcomes during the same time as a pandemic causing those things? I don't know."

In May, Fair developed a high fever and shortness of breath, both symptoms of COVID-19, and was admitted to Tulane Medical Center in New Orleans. He was tested for the coronavirus multiple times. Four tests came back negative, and one was a "weak positive," he said, which is not a reliable diagnosis.

But Fair's doctors told him they believed he had the virus anyway, and he was treated in a ward with COVID-19 patients.

"I had myriad COVID symptoms, was hospitalized in a COVID ward & treated for COVID-related co-morbidities, despite testing negative by nasal swab," he wrote on Twitter.

But a negative antibody test, which looks for the presence of virus-fighting antibodies in a person's blood, suggests he never had COVID-19 — although experts have previously questioned the accuracy of antibody tests.

Fair is surprised he didn't contract the virus at the hospital.

"There were a lot of coronavirus-positive people in there," he said. "What is really shocking to me is that I didn't get the virus in there. As a virologist, that part blows my mind."

Fair, who serves as a science contributor for MSNBC and NBC News, had previously told TODAY he believes he may have gotten the virus on a crowded flight. He was severely ill for two weeks and developed pneumonia and a lung injury. He was sent home after six days in the hospital and recovered there, while on oxygen.

Now Fair is trying to figure out what made him sick if it wasn't COVID-19.

Though the public is taking the pandemic seriously, stories like this are eroding the public's trust in the media.

Many conservatives acknowledge the severity of the pandemic.

However, they also believe that the media is purposefully making the stories sound more dire and scary than they actually are in order to hurt President Trump's re-election chances.

The revelation that Dr. Fair NEVER had COVID-19 will only re-inforce that belief.

To make matters worse, the news story probably contributed to the economic damage facing the airline industry.

Dr. Fair claimed that he believed he caught COVID-19 by riding on an airplane.

Of course, now we know that he never contracted the novel coronavirus, so the airlines are innocent in this specific case.

Yet with an audience of millions, NBC broadcast the story to the nation. 

The Daily Mail has more details:

A television doctor who believed he caught coronavirus through his eyes on a plane, and was left fighting for his life in the hospital, has tested negative for COVID-19, he confirmed.

Dr Joseph Fair, an infectious disease expert who spent his life studying deadly viruses, including Ebola, documented his struggle on social media and on NBC, where he works as a contributor.

The 42-year-old said he was severely sickened by something, but it was not COVID-19.

His illness 'remains an undiagnosed mystery', he said in a tweet on Tuesday.

'I had myriad COVID symptoms, was hospitalized in a COVID ward & treated for COVID-related co-morbidities, despite testing negative by nasal swab,' he said.

'I was severely ill for 2 weeks, 4 days of it in critical condition, resulting in pneumonia, diffuse lung injury & 18lbs of weight loss.'

He said he would now have a second antibody test to confirm the results, and work with other specialists to find out the source of his infection.

His doctor has ordered another antibody test from a different manufacturer to confirm the negative result.

Fair will also meet with a pulmonologist again as well as a tropical medicine doctor, since he has spent time in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

'My path forward is a 2nd AB test, & follow-up with a pulmonologist & tropical medicine specialist in an effort to diagnose what made me so ill,' he said.

Fair believes he contracted an illness on a plane to New Orleans on April 24.

Of course, there's always the possibility of a "false negative."

Dr. Fair will be taking another test from another manufacturer to confirm the results.

However, the results from this initial blood test suggest that Dr. Fair truly does not have antibodies, which means he never contracted the novel coronavirus.

Will NBC apologize?

Will NBC admit to airing a story about a doctor hospitalized with COVID-19 without even confirming that he had the disease?

Isn't that the job of journalists -- to confirm their sources?

This is exactly why the president calls the media, "Fake News!"