At least two people are dead and more have been injured in a massive pile-up on Friday, shutting down the Ohio Turnpike in both directions near the Erie/Sandusky county line.

A spokesperson for the Ohio State Highway Patrol (OSHP) told the local ABC affiliate that there were several crashes throughout the day — the first of which took place shortly before noon and involved five vehicles and resulted in two injuries, none of which were life-threatening.

Less than an hour later, multiple cars began to crash, resulting in a pile-up of 46 vehicles and at least two deaths.

🚨UPDATE: #OhioTurnpikeMP106Crash pic.twitter.com/QHm0KpL6n5

— OSHP_NWOhio (@OSHP_NWOhio) December 23, 2022

OSHP shared updates on the situation via Twitter, directing media outlets on where to send reporters for the latest information and confirming reports that at least two people had been killed in the wreck.

“Troopers on scene confirm two fatalities, with a minimum of 46 vehicles involved. Multiple agencies from several counties are continuing rescue operations. White-out conditions persist. Travel is not recommended,” the update read.

Troopers on scene confirm two fatalities, with a minimum of 46 vehicles involved. Multiple agencies from several counties are continuing rescue operations. White-out conditions persist. Travel is not recommended.#OhioTurnpikeMP106Crash pic.twitter.com/PhPcwdrsEv

— OSHP_NWOhio (@OSHP_NWOhio) December 23, 2022

“This is going to be ongoing for a while. There are a lot of troopers and first responders out there working through this,” the OSHP spokesperson said.

Dramatic videos show the scene of a deadly pileup on the Ohio Turnpike that involved approximately 50 vehicles during snowy conditions.

One person died and multiple people were injured, Ohio Highway Patrol said. https://t.co/qbrkoZswJU pic.twitter.com/OvJQzKjV4w

— ABC News (@ABC) December 23, 2022

Some reports estimated that the number of vehicles involved in the deadly crash might be closer to 100.

🚨#BREAKING: Mass Casualty Incident’ declared following pileup on Interstate 75 in Ohio

📌#Kirkwood l #OH

Multiple emergency crews are responding too a very serious accident is occurring on I-75N. With Mass Casualty Incident declared reports of over 100+ vehicles are piled up pic.twitter.com/TgfCm852Si

— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) December 23, 2022

Ohio

Multiple emergency crews are responding to a very serious accident occurring on I-75N. With Mass Casualty Incident declared reports of over 100+ vehicles are piled up

pic.twitter.com/lyYCmhdJXI

— Justin Hart (@justin_hart) December 23, 2022

Video taken at the scene showed first responders working to help stranded motorists out of their vehicles in the frigid temperatures. Buses were dispatched to transport uninjured passengers — and those whose cars were simply blocked — from the turnpike to a nearby maintenance building.

New video shows first responders helping people stranded on the Ohio Turnpike get out of their vehicles after the deadly 50-vehicle crash Friday >> https://t.co/DzdLzNsMT2 pic.twitter.com/Inl9360ymh

— WTVG 13abc (@13abc) December 23, 2022

Toledo Fire and Rescue confirmed that the Sandusky County Sheriff had called in a request for assistance with extrication at the scene.

“INCIDENT TYPE: Mutual Aid Request — Sandusky County Sheriff,” they tweeted, sharing photos of emergency vehicles headed to the scene with their lights flashing. “INCIDENT DETAILS: (December 23, 2022): TFRD extrication resources are assisting in Sandusky Co with a multiple vehicle accident on the Ohio Turnpike near mile post 118. #toledofire #mutualaid.”

INCIDENT TYPE: Mutual Aid Request – Sandusky County Sheriff

INCIDENT DETAILS:
(December 23, 2022): TFRD extrication resources are assisting in Sandusky Co with a multiple vehicle accident on the Ohio Turnpike near mile post 118. #toledofire #mutalaid pic.twitter.com/Cou4WafNL8

— Toledo Fire & Rescue (@ToledoFire) December 23, 2022

By late Friday afternoon, Sandusky County was still under a Level 3 Snow Emergency. High winds and temperatures remaining below zero meant that travel conditions would remain risky at best going into the holiday weekend.

Dr. Robert Malone, the scientist who pioneered the technology behind the mRNA COVID vaccines, told Ben Shapiro Friday he would no longer advise even most elderly patients to get the jab.

Speaking on Shapiro’s popular radio show and podcast, Malone, who was marginalized by the media for raising questions about the vaccines early in the pandemic, said young and healthy people generally don’t need the shots. But he added that new data is showing that adverse effects of the vaccines increase with age, seemingly obfuscating the argument that the shots benefit the elderly, even though they may be more at risk of dying from COVID.

“If you factor in the stratified risk of the vaccine products the stratified risk of the virus as it exists right now, and the availability of early treatment, you really can’t make a case based on the data for employing these products for anyone,” said Malone.

The 63-year-old physician and scientist said his early reservations about vaccinating children, a position also held by Shapiro, were based on data showing an elevated risk of myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart. Now, he believes the vaccine poses a danger to older people that outweighs any benefits it may convey.

“Originally, my position was that we should vaccinate the high-risk cohorts, including the elderly,” he said. “And over time, as the data have come out and the analysis has come out from respected individuals, I’ve had to shift that position.”

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Malone, who has a new book out called “Lies My Government Told Me And The Better Future Coming,” is a vaccine scientist who in the late 1980s conducted the foundational research that helped establish the mRNA vaccine technology used in the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID vaccines. Although he told Shapiro he got the Moderna vaccine, he came to question the forced vaccinations of Americans and the safety of the vaccines. He was banished from Twitter for raising concerns, but has recently been reinstated under new owner Elon Musk.

Shapiro noted that many of the concerns Malone increasingly raised over the past two years had turned out to be well-founded.

“The censorship of Dr. Malone during the course of the entire pandemic is one of the big stories of the pandemic, considering that he was largely right on the risks of the COVID vaccine, particularly to the young and healthy,” Shapiro told his audience.

Shapiro, who has said he got vaccinated due to initial alleged data on the reduction of spread, helped lead The Daily Wire’s historic fight against the Biden administration’s requirement that employers force their workers to get the vaccines. The Daily Wire took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, where it prevailed.

An issue that troubled both Shapiro and Malone was that the federal government pushed pro-vaccine claims that later proved to be false, notably that the vaccines prevented transmission of COVID. Such claims were made to convince, and even force, people to get vaccinated.

“We should not have mandates and we should not have coercion in the form of government propaganda and other surreptitious marketing strategies to entice people or coerce people or mandate people to take what’s still really an experimental medical product,” Malone said.

Malone said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lost its way during the pandemic and chose politics over science.

“It is a political arm of the White House, and it functions as such,” Malone said. “It no longer is functioning as an objective reporter, an analyst of epidemiologic and other medical information.”

Malone accused the federal government of pushing the vaccines with a “clinically tested propaganda messaging strategy,” and said officials silenced scientific inquiry. He recalled asking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office over a conference call to help him obtain age-stratified data on the risks of COVID, but was rebuffed.

Shapiro asked how federal officials peddling propaganda can be distinguished from those simply giving the best available information, which may later turn out not to be true.

“It becomes extremely difficult,” Malone acknowledged. “We’re now in an environment in which public faith in governmental public health officers has tanked.”

Malone said new data is undermining old claims, and the public is increasingly suspicious it has been lied to.

“It’s almost as if the propaganda or sensitive topic areas have an electric fence around them,” he said. “As soon as you get close to those topics, you get a shock. The shock comes in the form of gaslighting, you know, de-platforming attacks, straw man arguments, ad hominem attacks, et cetera.”