The pandemic appears to be affecting African-American communities disproportionately. This is not so much about the virus itself, but about inequality in the treatment of the health of African-Americans in general. I would also suspect you would find a similar stratification in the treatment of the rich versus the poor in the U.S. This pandemic is serving as a tremendous indictment of the entire socio-economic system in this country; it remains to be seen whether anything will change as a result.
As far as the local spread, the numbers for my county are published here. They seem to echo other numbers from other locations in terms of proportion, at the very least, which lends them credence.
I hate to say this, because it sounds callous. It is callous, really, but it’s also true and it’s something I believe we all need to keep in mind for our own individual sanity. We are hearing a lot about various cases of this disease which make it sound extremely scary and unbelievably lethal. These stories are true: it is possible to contract and to die from this disease if you are younger; if you have no underlying health conditions or compromised immune function; if you are taking reasonable precautions. Our media, because they are click-driven, is full of such stories. We are attuned to listen to stories as human beings, and stories do matter. But we also need to remember that these are anecdotes. They represent one person each — a person whose death, had it been from any other disease or accident, you would have remained blissfully unaware of. The statistics for this disease are telling a different story than the media accounts, and it is those numbers you need to be paying attention to. They are what you need in order to assess the risk that you are under, and take appropriate actions.
They are also what you need for peace of mind. Another less-popularized consequence of this situation is the mental and emotional toll it is taking on each of us. We aren’t robots — we’re going to respond to the suffering around us even if we aren’t directly affected. But going with an emotional response could put you in the wrong frame of mind to protect yourself and your loved ones. People in fear don’t always make logical decisions. And you do obviously have reasons to be seriously concerned — but keeping a cool head and evaluating things from a more detached perspective, while not a method to ensure your perfect security, is the best way to get through this safely.
Filed under: health, media | Tagged: coronavirus, covid-19, evidence, psychology, risk, statistics | Leave a comment »
Though it’s tempting to treat it as an artifact of the Internet, rushing an item to press has always been a tactic employed by journalists, probably since the days of the Bennetts and the New York Herald; getting “the scoop” was and remains a huge deal. In that rush, just as in those days, accuracy is often sacrificed, which is not often considered as a great loss to publishers. Despite protestations to the contrary in the field of journalism, simply giving the facts and the truth about a story is frequently dull and a poor way to sell newspapers, virtual or otherwise. Anyone who’s been on the Worldstarhiphop site for more than five minutes will tell you what draws eyeballs — things that end up in some needlessly dramatic mess. Which brings us to the case of Jussie Smollett. 
The Hidden Message 