Quick question: has anyone seen any updated statistics on infection and/or mortality rates by age group? Earlier global profiles (from only a week or ten days ago) suggested the mortality rate went up significantly due to both age and underlying health conditions. News media in the U.S. are highlighting cases which are not following this pattern — that it is killing younger and fully healthy individuals — however, they have not come with any supporting data. They’re all anecdotes.
Looking at what might account for this, I can think of one main difference: as opposed to other countries, there is no extensive testing regime in the U.S. Based on this, my guess is that the numbers in the U.S. — whatever they may actually be — are skewed in presenting a more deadly form of the virus.
As well, there is, as I mentioned in my last article, a tendency for media to catastrophize, partly in order to achieve a particular result in public safety. This is very much the case in the U.S., since 1) media tends to be centered in the cities, which are being hardest hit; 2) media is still a business and is going to get clicks based on the most sensational aspects of a story, even if that story is a pandemic; and 3) the United States’s response is fractured among Governors and Mayors, given the ineffectual nature of the Federal Government under Donald Trump and the general national demeanor that goes against any kind of collective, mutually beneficial action.
So I’m more inclined that we have a uniquely poor information (and health) system in this country than that we have a uniquely deadly form of the virus…but it may be confirmed otherwise by better actual data.
Filed under: health | Tagged: coronavirus, covid-19, msm, 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. 
O’s pitcher Koji Uehara was forced to leave the game yesterday after three innings due to dehydration. Okay, it was pretty hot in D.C. yesterday, where the Orioles were playing, and we did win the game and all…but could we please teach the O’s coaching staff how to say, “Hey, have a cup of water,” in Japanese?
The Hidden Message 