‘Law & Order: SVU’ Star Ice-T Shares ‘Simple and Straight’ NSFW Message for Coronavirus Critics

Law & Order: SVU star Ice-T shared his most straightforward take on the coronavirus pandemic this weekend as debates over the virus continue to rage. The former rapper is completely unfiltered on Twitter, where he warned his followers to take COVID-19 seriously no matter what qualifiers they may hear from dissenters. His message came amid a push from the Trump administration to change the rhetoric around its coronavirus response.

Ice-T promised to address the coronavirus pandemic “as simple and as straight as I can” on Saturday evening: “the virus is REAL and it will F— you up and possibly KILL you or someone you love.. F— around with it if you want to.” He signed his name on the tweet, which picked up over 10,000 likes and over 2,000 retweets in just a few minutes.

Fans applauded Ice-T’s tweet, especially given the context it came in. On Friday, NBC News reported that the Trump administration is planning a big effort to change the public discourse around the coronavirus pandemic next week, summed up in one simple phrase: “We need to live with it.”

This approach is already being denounced by critics all along the political spectrum, with many saying that it poses a risk to impressionable listeners. The new messaging will reportedly involve the suggestion that young and healthy people do not need to fear COVID-19, as they have a high survival rate. This is debatable at best, with experts like Dr. Lisa Lockerd Maragakis pointing out that it ignores all the mitigation efforts we have taken so far.

“In addition to endangering their own health, more coronavirus infections among young adults could mean more risk to older people, who are still the group most likely to die,” she wrote in an article for Hopkins Medicine. Maragakis noted that, while 80 percent of coronavirus deaths have been in people aged 65 years or older, about 38 percent of hospitalizations have been adults between the ages of 20 and 54. For these people, death is not the only serious threat — COVID-19 can cause permanent damage to the respiratory system.

Still, a Trump administration official told NBC News that a whole new line of messaging is about to come out of the White House, the central message of which will be: “The virus is with us, but we need to live with it.” Officials intend to focus on therapeutic drugs to reduce the symptoms of those suffering as the greatest sign of hope.

Their biggest obstacle, as they see it, is reportedly the president himself. The official noted that Trump has often gone off-script in press conferences, interviews and speeches during the coronavirus crisis, making claims that do not match his staff’s plans. Starting next week, regular press briefings will become a staple of their response again, and they are hoping the president can stick to the script this time around.