Fox News host Laura Ingraham has warned that Joe Biden will institute “rolling lockdowns” to control the coronavirus – turning the US into Wales.

Ms Ingraham, one of Donald Trump’s most dogged media supporters, shared a BBC news article reporting that “Coronavirus: 'Rolling lockdowns' will become norm in Wales”, tweeting it along with the words “Your future under Biden”.

The tweet has so far been retweeted some 3,000 times, including by the president himself. It has met with some degree of ridicule, with one user sarcastically musing that “Wales is finally getting the respect it deserves.”

The article Ms Ingraham shared quotes the Welsh chief medical officer warning that the country should “get ready” for on-and-off lockdown procedures, with 15 out of 22 counties now under local lockdown measures. 

Ms Ingraham has tweeted about Welsh affairs before, correctly predicting that the country would vote to leave the European Union and sharing a Wales Online article about cuts at a Tata Steel plant in Port Talbot. “This is what happens when China overwhelms markets with too much capacity,” she wrote.

Unlike various US presidents (and also Hillary Clinton), Joe Biden is not known to have family roots in Wales. However, his campaign for the 1988 Democratic nomination famously foundered after he was accused of plagiarising a speech by Neil Kinnock, the Welsh leader of the opposition against Margaret Thatcher.

Ms Ingraham’s animosity toward lockdowns has remained consistent throughout the pandemic, and she is increasingly warning her viewers – among them Mr Trump – that a Biden presidency would herald lockdown after lockdown, infringing Americans’ constitutional rights and ruining their day-to-day lives.

In one monologue broadcast in September, she offered the audience a particularly stark diagnosis.

“If you want to see your grandparents next year; if you want to have your son to have an actual graduation ceremony; if you’re a college student and you want to be on campus; if you want to watch March Madness, for goodness’ sakes, or if you want to go to Easter Sunday services – you should not vote for Biden.

“Because if he wins, none of that is going to happen. Not even in red states. ‘The doctors’ will always tell him, ‘it’s not safe until we have an effective vaccine that has been successfully administered to most Americans,’ whether we want it or not. The consequences will be disastrous.”