Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, now a top contender to be the Democratic Party nominee for the U.S. Senate in Michigan, spent the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic praising lockdowns and stay-at-home orders while berating Americans for going to parks and beaches. Yet, he soon joined a chorus of public health experts in defending the massive and unregulated Black Lives Matter protests — with the argument that “racism is a public health crisis too.”

El-Sayed spent months in the spring of 2020 criticizing Republicans and conservatives who were protesting against government-directed coronavirus restrictions and blaming these protesters (as well as other people who went outside and gathered unmasked in crowds) for spreading the virus and getting people killed. But he soon became a leading voice in defending the BLM demonstrations nationwide starting in late May 2020, claiming that defeating racism was a public health issue similar to coronavirus and that mass protests were justified and necessary.

El-Sayed — then a former Detroit city government health official, and a Columbia medical school graduate due to the largess of a Soros Fellowship, and now a possible frontrunner to be the next U.S. senator from the state of Michigan — leaned heavily on his health credentials in 2020 as he promoted his views on his “America Dissected” podcast, spoke in multiple interviews, and fired off dozens of tweets which have since been deleted but which were reviewed by Just the News through web archives.

Protégé of controversial Muslim activist Linda Sarsour

The polling average by Real Clear Polling suggests that El-Sayed is the slight frontrunner in the Democratic primary, where his opponents are Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., and Michigan State Sen. Mallory McMorrow.

Just the News previously reported that El-Sayed is a years-long protégé of controversial Muslim activist Linda Sarsour, whose endorsement of Abdul El-Sayed during his previous failed bid to be Michigan governor helped elevate him from relative obscurity nearly a decade ago. Just the News also previously reported on El-Sayed’s role in promoting a hoax hate crime murder which he claimed had been driven by anti-Muslim bigotry but which a jury later found had been committed by a Muslim husband.

El-Sayed’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment at press time.

From mid-March 2020 through May 2020, El-Sayed was a relentless proponent of lockdowns, social distancing, and stay-at-home orders, and a harsh critic of those who opposed these government policies.

“Public health is politics. Public health is politics. Public health is politics,” El-Sayed said in a deleted tweet on March 10, 2020. “As coronavirus spreads, remember that our response to this epidemic cannot be separated from our politics.”

He quickly began calling for Americans to stay home.

El-Sayed: “Don't be a #COVidiot: #StayHome”  

El-Sayed said on Twitter on March 14, 2020 that “I love the gym. But there is NO WAY I'd go to a gym. People breathing hard, wiping their face, and touching all the equipment is a recipe for spread. Do a body weight workout at home or go for a run (but NOT in a crowded place)!”

“We *can* beat this,” El-Sayed tweeted on March 16, 2020. “It'll take all of us to do it. #StayHome, #WashYourHands, & check in w/ your loved ones.” El-Sayed then began harshly criticizing people who were going to parties and to beaches.

“So remember the pics of all those kids partying this weekend?” El-Sayed said on Twitter on March 17, 2020. “Well, they think they're not going to get the #Coronavirus . That's not true, they're just not going to get SYMPTOMS of # Covid_19. But this graph shows that they might still get it--and unknowingly pass it on.”

El-Sayed called on people to “protect yourself & your family. #StaySafeStayHome” on March 18, 2020. The same day, he criticized Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for allowing people to go outside and enjoy themselves at the beach.

“Good public policy can save lives right now. But good public policy takes leadership,” El-Sayed tweeted. “@GovRonDeSantis needs to step up and shut down the massive public gatherings on Florida's beaches right now.”

El-Sayed wrote an opinion piece for The Guardian the next day which called for stay-at-home orders and lockdowns.

“Taking on the epidemic of coronavirus will require bold action to mitigate spread — this means eliminating congregation in restaurants, bars, and clubs, as well as potentially locking down communities with major outbreaks,” he wrote on March 19, 2020. “It means mandating work from home for non-essential personnel.”

The Democrat activist also tweeted that day, “YOUNG PPL [Red Siren Emoji], I'm looking at you [Eyes Emoji] #StaySafeStayHome.”

The next day, El-Sayed said on Twitter that he was proud that his mosque was canceling in-person services. “As a Muslim, Friday prayer, or #Jumuah, has been a pillar of my life since I can remember — a moment to remember the Divine & connect with the community,” El-Sayed tweeted on March 20, 2020. “I’m proud that we are doing our part to #FlattenTheCurve and canceling prayers for #Covid_19. But man, I still miss it.”

The same day, the left-wing doctor did a podcast episode on “How the World Is Treating the Coronavirus” where he again criticized people who were going to the beach.“You know what’s not helping? All the folks who treated last weekend like just another lovely weekend, filling bars and clubs and public spaces, like this bro who was interviewed enjoying his spring break at a beach in Florida. … Dude, that is super irresponsible,” El-Sayed said.

El-Sayed: "Worse than 9/11"

The doctor tweeted on March 23, 2020 that “stay at home orders are critical in major metros to stop the spread of #COVID-19” and added that “public health requires ALL of us to commit to the solution—and that means #SocialDistancing.”

El-Sayed also said that those people who were not staying home were idiots. “Don't be a #COVidiot: #StayHome,” he tweeted on March 25, 2020. El-Sayed ended an interview on WDET 101.9fm on March 27, 2020 by urging “everybody” to “stay safe, stay home, save lives.” He also tweeted on March 29, 2020 that “Dr. Anthony Fauci is the Gen. George Patton of our time.”

El-Sayed also began suggesting that the pandemic was worse than 9/11. El-Sayed said the pandemic was many times worse than the terrorist attack. “Today the 40,000th American died of #COVID19, which we didn’t know existed 6 months ago — only hit the U.S. 3 months ago. That’s like a 9/11 attack every 10 days for three months,” he tweeted.

“#COVID19 has taken over 3000 American lives - more than 9/11,” he posted on March 31, 2020. “I hope that means we'll spend the next ten years fighting a war for public health & against climate change & poverty...like we launched a global #WarOnTerror after 9/11. We could save lives, rather than take them.”

El-Sayed spoke with the socialist magazine Jacobin for a story published on April 2, 2020, where he was asked by the outlet what Americans could be doing at the time to “counteract the impact of coronavirus and the insufficient political response to it, and stand in solidarity with those most affected?”

“Number one, we’ve got to beat this virus, which means that public health has to be front and center,” El-Sayed said. “People need to stay home and protect themselves and their families.”

The next day, he said that whether or not someone was wearing a mask, they should not be going out into the public. “Mask or no mask, #StayTheFHome,” he tweeted on April 3, 2020. El-Sayed also did an interview with the leftwing outlet Current Affairs which was published on April 7, 2020, where he strongly endorsed lockdown efforts and stay-at-home orders.

“Where we are today is that we are doing a couple of things. A, we’re social distancing to flatten the curve. What that means is that we are trying to put up social barriers in society to reduce the spread of this coronavirus between people,” El-Sayed said. “We’ve got to keep doing that, and the way that I would be thinking about that is to institute sort of isolations of particularly affected areas. I would be doing the same things that government officials across the country are doing in terms of mandating work from home, shutting down nonessential services, limiting mass transit, etc. That’s important.”

In reference to a conservative protest against Whitmer’s stay at home orders, El-Sayed said that the protesters were on the side of the virus. “Make no mistake: this was a protest IN FAVOR OF #coronavirus. I mean, it’s the only thing that benefitted from it,” he tweeted on April 15, 2020.

“When @realDonaldTrump hints that it's okay to ‘open up’ the economy, he undermines the key message right now: #SocialDistance,” El-Sayed said on Twitter on April 16, 2020.

“It’s been seven long weeks of social distancing, and it’s worked,” the leftist doctor argued, and he approvingly played a clip of Governor Whitmer urging Michiganders to stay home. El-Sayed then once more criticized Americans for lying outside and for going to parks and beaches.

“I was kind of surprised as I drove through town on my way to Costco to buy groceries over the weekend to see groups of young people sunbathing outside … And then I scrolled Twitter, because, well, what else is there to do, and I catch pictures of people in astoundingly large groups in Georgia, New York City’s West Village, or on Huntington Beach. Come on now, people,” he said. “We’ve got to do better.”

George Floyd's death: "Racism is a public health issue, too" says El-Sayed

El-Sayed’s podcast episode on May 26, 2020 — the day after Floyd’s death — was titled “Is It Safe To Come Out?” and made no specific mention of Floyd. It is unclear if the episode was recorded prior to Floyd’s death or if his death had just not fully entered El-Sayed’s zeitgeist yet.

When speaking of businesses, he said, “They have to make sure they can keep people distanced in uncrowded spaces with all of the PPE and hand sanitizer they’ll need to limit any kind of viral spread.”

El-Sayed also again criticized the conservative rallies opposing COVID restrictions, and blamed those protesters for deaths from the virus.

“The reason that black and brown communities in our society are suffering so much worse is because of the same social geography that we’ve allowed to exist in our society for a long time and this idea that somehow it’s your own behavior that shapes your risk for disease is dashed when you look at these folks with guns who are having rallies-slash-parties at the capitol in Michigan, right?” El-Sayed said.

El-Sayed soon changed his tune about protests as he became a huge supporter of the massive BLM marches and protests following Floyd’s death. El-Sayed had now shifted into defending massive protests during a pandemic.

His podcast episode on June 2, 2020 was titled “Going Viral in a Pandemic” and the description said that “Abdul discusses the lynching of George Floyd in the context of COVID-19.” “The vast majority of scientists agree that social distancing is necessary in the absence of effective control early on in the pandemic — that if it had happened earlier, we would have saved more lives,” El-Sayed said, before backing the BLM protests and saying he had been participating in them.

The next day, El-Sayed specifically adopted the argument that the BLM protests during the pandemic were good because racism is a public health crisis too.

“If you're [sic] response to the #protests is not ‘I want to understand the pain that is driving this action…’ take a second and ask yourself what's wrong with YOU. #BlackLivesMatter​ #protest2020,” El-Sayed said in a June 3, 2020 tweet. He added the same day, “For all the folks using the #pandemic to argue against the #protests: Don't forget that Black folks suffered FAR more #coronavirus per capita than average. Why? #Racism is a #publichealthcrisis.​ And #COVID19 is a racism crisis.”

El-Sayed conjures a link between COVID and racism

El-Sayed spoke with Politico on June 4, 2020, where he sought to defend the massive BLM protests by arguing that COVID and racism were linked.

“You cannot divorce this from COVID-19, which found an all-too-common path to black communities, killing black folks and destroying their livelihoods at far higher rates. Almost all of us saw the Floyd video, though it was unbearable to watch [...] Imagine knowing that all this—the police brutality, the low-wage jobs, the coronavirus — all of it was far worse in your community, simply because of the color of your skin. We have to recognize that black folks aren’t just excluded from the ‘public’ in public safety — but also from public health, public utilities (Flint), public education, and so on.”

The next day — June 5, 2020 — he retweeted a photo of himself at a Detroit BLM protest.

“Don’t pit the #Protests against #PublicHealth,” El-Sayed tweeted on June 7, 2020. “But if you’re headed out, stay safe! - wear your MASK! - wear gloves or bring sanitizer - stay in smaller groups - avoid yelling, and bring noisemakers instead - stay home if you feel sick.” The candidate added: “And authorities need to do THEIR part: - don’t provoke violence - don’t use teargas - don’t detain protestors in tight confines - don’t compress protests into tight units.”

The following day he tried to argue that, while BLM protests were justified during a pandemic, Trump rallies were still bad.

“No, #BLM #protests DO NOT justify the #COVID risks of proposed @realDonaldTrump rallies: Protests are about saving 83K Black Lives lost to racism annually. They are ABOUT health! Trump rallies are [...] political,” El-Sayed said on Twitter on June 8, 2020.

El-Sayed wrote a lengthy opinion piece for Newsweek the same day titled, “Don’t Shame Protesters Over Coronavirus. Racism Is a Public Health Crisis Too.” His author’s biography for the piece touted that he “is an epidemiologist and former health director” for Detroit.

“Floyd's killing followed nearly two months of lockdown to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, which also pressed its knee to the neck of black Americans, killing them at 2.4 times the rate of white people,” El-Sayed contended. “That's why it's maddening to watch as commentators, well-meaning and otherwise, use the pandemic to shame protesters.”

El-Sayed was pushing back against a Politico article that published a few days earlier in June 2020, had been titled, “Suddenly, Public Health Officials Say Social Justice Matters More Than Social Distance. For months, health experts told Americans to stay home. Now, many are encouraging the public to join mass protests.”

The outlet had written, “For months, public health experts have urged Americans to take every precaution to stop the spread of COVID-19—stay at home, steer clear of friends and extended family, and absolutely avoid large gatherings. Now some of those experts are broadcasting a new message: It’s time to get out of the house and join the mass protests against racism.”

Vance: Hypocrisy "eroded trust in our country's experts”

Conservatives, who felt their own concerns about long-term economic damage or even mental health costs of lockdown were brushed aside just days or weeks ago, are increasingly asking whether these public health experts are letting their politics sway their health care recommendations,” the outlet had also said.

The Politico article also pointed to tweets from conservative commentators, such as now-Vice President JD Vance, who had said in early June 2020 that “I'm still amazed at how quickly the moral scolding ceased as soon as elite-favored protests began taking place. (I guess I shouldn't be amazed anymore. I should just expect it.) But it has further eroded trust in our country's experts.”

El-Sayed also released an episode of his podcast on June 9, 2020 titled “Protesting in a Pandemic” which again sought to defend the BLM protests, even after he had blamed conservative protests for killing people and spreading the coronavirus.

“Protests are still raging across America following the lynching of George Floyd, but the rest of America seems to be having a Covid-is-over party, and that may be a bit premature. COVID-19 cases are skyrocketing in some of the states that reopened earliest, like Florida,” El-Sayed said, adding that “in cities and towns across America, protesters have taken to the streets in a show of outrage over the lynching of George Floyd and so many black Americans at the hands of police in this country.”

“But of course, we’re just now coming out of lockdown for COVID-19, where we all socially distanced to slow the spread of coronavirus. And though many protesters are wearing masks and gloves to prevent transmissions, others aren’t,” El-Sayed also noted.

El-Sayed at first downplayed COVID, suggesting the flu was "a bigger threat"

In early 2020 as the American public first began to learn about the COVID-19 pandemic raging in China, El-Sayed joined a number of commentators who briefly downplayed the threat posed by coronavirus by saying that the flu had killed more Americans than COVID-19 had as of the last couple months of the year.

CNN tweeted on January 31, 2020 that “there's a virus that has infected 15 million Americans across the country and killed more than 8,200 people this season alone” and that “it's not a new pandemic — it's influenza.” El-Sayed retweeted a tweet from his ally Abdullah Hammoud which had said, “And if you're still skeptical about vaccinating yourself, check out the podcast America Dissected by @AbdulElSayed.”

El-Sayed tweeted on February 5, 2020, “Deaths from Coronavirus: 300 (globally). Deaths associated with not having access to health insurance: 45,000 (United States). Coronavirus is terrifying. But, here at home, we have another epidemic on our hands: corporate greed in healthcare. #MedicareForAll.”

Calling COVID-19 the “China virus” was racist: El-Sayed

El-Sayed also repeatedly said in 2020 that calling COVID-19 the “China virus” was racist, although it has been proven that the coronavirus originated in Wuhan, China. Multiple U.S. intelligence agencies assessed that SARS-Cov-2 emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2019.

“To equate a disease — ANY disease — with a group of people is inhumane and wrong,” El-Sayed tweeted in late January 2020. “It reminds us that one of humanity's most serious diseases is racism. The idea that #coronavirus is leading to anti-Chinese racism is wrong, reviling, and harms public health.”

El-Sayed also tweeted in mid-March 2020, “To my Chinese-American friends, I'm so sorry that as our country realizes under # COVID19, ppl responsible are trying to scapegoat the place your family came from by calling this a #ChineseVirus. I have a small sense of what it's like. Nobody should face that. #WithYouToday.”

Once the BLM protests were largely in the rear-view mirror and Trump had been defeated in November 2020, El-Sayed did an about-face and returned to calling for shutdowns to slow the spread of COVID-19.

“There is no question,” El-Sayed told PBS in April 2021 when asked if he were governor then, if he would shut the state down. “If you look at where the science is and has been, we have — we have been the country’s leader in B.1.1.7, which we know is more transmissible and evidence to suggest more deadly. We are watching as hospitalizations spike. The CDC itself has suggested we ought to shut things down, and we know that shut-downs in the past have been successful, whether it was in the spring or in the fall in November. This is a responsibility.”