Covid news distortion makes it worse

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ZoWie
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Covid news distortion makes it worse

Post by ZoWie »

We have just seen why people won't mask up, won't take precautions, and soon won't even bother with vaccines. It's because the doom and gloom in the news has not matched the actual situation, and people have tuned it out and gone about their business.

We had a perfect example this week. Some doctor noted, accurately, that the latest variant of Omicron incorporates genetic material from Delta and is the worst Omicron variant since that strain was discovered six or so months back. The quote was something like "This is the worst Omicron variant." Or words close to that. Clinically, it's far from the worst covid illness we've seen from the earlier variants, which were filling up the hospitals.

I seem to be the only one who noticed that every headline I saw just said, "'Worst Variant' Threatens Public, Says Doctor." There was no explanation in the bodies of the stories, leaving the reader thinking that covid is the worst it's ever been. It isn't.

It got worse on the local news radio station, when they had a guy on saying that a doctor had just said that everybody was going to have covid soon, and there was no point trying not to. Actually, that person was quoting the same guy, and along with his "worst variant" reference, even a cursory reading of the story showed that it had really said just the opposite. The story said that people who did the whole drill of boosting, masking up, testing, and distancing just weren't getting it very often, otherwise getting it was a certainty.

This is irresponsible journalism. It goes on every day, it causes extreme stress and mental problems, it discourages common sense health measures, and it makes people sick.
"We must remember that we cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation." --Liz Cheney, Republican, 7/21/22
bradman
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Re: Covid news distortion makes it worse

Post by bradman »

Covid is so 1919. We're over it. Don't care.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/the-worst-ve ... 33423.html

In the mean time, my Mother is still a second class citizen.
I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat. [Will Rogers]
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ZoWie
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Re: Covid news distortion makes it worse

Post by ZoWie »

That's precisely the distortion I mentioned. It's not the worst version of covid ever. The doctor said it's the worst covid variant in the Omicron era. It has incorporated genes from the Delta variant that cause a more widespread infection in the respiratory system.

The worst version of covid was the first one. I don't think it ever got a Greek letter. It spread like crazy, it attacked your whole body, and with no vaccines and people like drumpf running things, you were lucky if it didn't kill you stone cold dead. ICUs filled up. PPE ran out. Arenas were converted into field hospitals. Bodies they couldn't identify were bagged and thrown into anonymous mass graves.

Whole countries were thrown into crises that started all this supply chain stuff that they now blame the Democratic Party for. Around here it started when all passengers were allowed off a cruise ship where documented cases were occurring. They didn't know about asymptomatic cases and incubation period length yet, and after a couple of days they simply let everyone go their merry way. From then on you could sit and watch it eat California. It started mutating almost immediately and the Greek letters and all that came later.

It doesn't matter anyway, because the resulting cognitive dissonance between the scare headlines and the real world where smart people get shots and mask up, has already caused most of the public to simply tune covid out altogether. At the rate they're partying like it's 2019, it's going to be a very traumatic summer. It's already started in LA. Every day now, some acquaintance who said frack it all and started mixing with people in closed poorly ventilated spaces is getting covid and can't figure out why. Some of them are going to meetings, etc, when they know they're sick, because after all covid is over. It's about two iterations short of eating LA. Again. It's all so goddamn unnecessary because we know what to do. We just won't do it.

Soon the next exponential surge will be in the number of scary news headlines based on misquotes and poor understanding. They will lead to more denial and make the problem worse.
"We must remember that we cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation." --Liz Cheney, Republican, 7/21/22
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