Ted Nugent wants to know "why weren't we shut down for Covid one through 18?"
In a Facebook Live video posted last week, the rockstar with Michigan roots wondered out loud why there weren't lockdowns during previous coronavirus discoveries.
The claim earned a fact check from Snopes, which confirmed Nugent actually made the statement before labeling it bogus amid several other misleading statements about the pandemic.
"COVID-1 — and there was a COVID 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 — COVID one through 18 didn’t shut anything down but woah, COVID-19," he said during the video.
Nugent also questioned why there weren't shutdowns during other health epidemics that spread across the U.S. in previous decades.
The name COVID-19 was first given in February 2020. Its name comes from the specific disease caused by the coronavirus and the year it was discovered: SARS-CoV-2 in 2019.
The logic that Nugent used in his live video posted on April 7 would imply there have been 18 coronaviruses before the latest disease that has spread across the globe.
Nugent, an avid gun rights advocate who made several public appearances at events supporting Donald Trump when he was president, made several other misleading claims about the pandemic, including its survival rate and how public health officials have classified specific cases.