Media Fearmongering Of Coronavirus

My attitude is: I'll keep my distance, wear glasses, gloves, and an n95 mask in close quarters, and ignore the drama.

If you don't want to catch it, you can actually be proactive and use your own ppe.

My assumption is that a large proportion of people don't care if they catch it, and I'm not fussed by that.
 
Reason said:
I'm not sure what you're asking nor who you're asking
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Just musing to no one in particular.

Sandie33 said:
Fear mongering equals attempt at control. And they fukked that up too.
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Yes. This.

Usually fear mongering through media can be a tool to encourage people to be more cautious, thus ably slowing the spread. It worked for my locality somehow.
 
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@mintoots - I think I agree with that. If you tell people to do more than enough, when they inevitably don't follow those rules, they're still doing enough. It's a kind of haggling.

What this does, however, is demonstrate a lack of trust in, and disdain for, the public at large. I'm not sure this is totally unfounded though.
 
Cornerstone said:
What this does, however, is demonstrate a lack of trust in, and disdain for, the public at large.
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Yes. It's an arrogant trick too. Ultimately the choice is still the public's so I guess it's just hyper marketing --- it's not very different from saturating media with heartwarming stories to amp up sales for hallmark cards and shampoo, or something.
 
mintoots said:
It worked for my locality somehow.
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On what ways do you think @mintoots ?

Does your area lean more toward collective rather than individual social norms? I believe the US fails in many ways by not implementing the collective mindset ... but then again I'm a fan of hippy-communal life where group think and group work pays well for everyone in the group, not just the bigwiggs. ;)
 
Sandie33 said:
On what ways do you think @mintoots ?

Does your area lean more toward collective rather than individual social norms? I believe the US fails in many ways by not implementing the collective mindset ... but then again I'm a fan of hippy-communal life where group think and group work pays well for everyone in the group, not just the bigwiggs. ;)
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Totally communal. Here the case is a bit peculiar because the governance is lax compared to the rest of the country. In other cities, people are fined for not wearing masks or if they violate public dining regulations. They have soft power activities too like encouraging villages to compete in online meme battles with a financial prize, stuff like that, so the experience is turned into a playful cluster war -- there are online dance challenges, pageants --- stuff to wire emotions down. There's not much of that in our city. Basically, it's up to the leadership of each city to assess their conditions and here in ours, malls and churches opened far sooner. The city abides by national guidelines but that's it, no more extra effort. Yet we are one of the most dense urban areas with the lowest cases of incidence because many of the city residents are a bit paranoid. The malls are open but they employed their own strict restrictions. People also voluntarily avoid malls. Doctors are always posting on social media and people listen. Much of the paranoia is from social media and then the results are quite fascinating. Just a day ago, the government announced that festivities for the celebration of the city charter day will proceed but the leadership is already receiving backlash online so I doubt people will even go.
 
mintoots said:
Totally communal. Here the case is a bit peculiar because the governance is lax compared to the rest of the country. In other cities, people are fined for not wearing masks or if they violate public dining regulations. They have soft power activities too like encouraging villages to compete in online meme battles with a financial prize, stuff like that, so the experience is turned into a playful cluster war -- there are online dance challenges, pageants --- stuff to wire emotions down. There's not much of that in our city. Basically, it's up to the leadership of each city to assess their conditions and here in ours, malls and churches opened far sooner. The city abides by national guidelines but that's it, no more extra effort. Yet we are one of the most dense urban areas with the lowest cases of incidence because many of the city residents are a bit paranoid. The malls are open but they employed their own strict restrictions. People also voluntarily avoid malls. Doctors are always posting on social media and people listen. Much of the paranoia is from social media and then the results are quite fascinating. Just a day ago, the government announced that festivities for the celebration of the city charter day will proceed but the leadership is already receiving backlash online so I doubt people will even go.
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This sounds similar to my state officials in their approach. We have mandatory requests from the state level that trickle down to each town governance to decide what rules the locals need to adhere too.

Thank you for sharing what is going on in your area :)
 
Sandie33 said:
This sounds similar to my state officials in their approach. We have mandatory requests from the state level that trickle down to each town governance to decide what rules the locals need to adhere too.

Thank you for sharing what is going on in your area :)
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You're welcome ♥️

Some other cities have it really badly though :( precision lock down is practiced here. When there are 6 cases in a micro area like a hamlet it is locked down for at least 14 days. Nobody is able to go in and out of the vicinity but because some cities are so lax in implementation, some people have reportedly escaped so now the rising numbers in those areas is where the main bulk of our national cases are too. We are lucky there are still COVID free towns.
 
I read the article and rolled my eyes. I'm judging the USA really hard though, so I have a huge bias. Your media down there, in my opinion, can barely be considered news or even valid reporting. It comes across more like sensational click bait infotainment more than anything else. It's a lot of opinions flying around that don't say very much. Everything is so heavily politicized and people seem to have such a deep mistrust for each other and their government that it's no wonder these media companies choose to capitalize on it. Everything is about money. It's not about safety, it's not about facts. To me it looks like an information war, not to sound dramatic. At least that's my perception. I don't have television so I can't tune in to the absolute wealth of knowledge and integrity that is main stream "news" so maybe that's why I find it all so baffling as well. Most people I know here aren't glued to the TV so we just aren't being bombarded with fear mongering.

I don't understand why people down there are automatically so concerned that their freedoms are being infringed upon because they've been asked to do literally the bare minimum to keep themselves and each other safe.

I also find writing off the concerns with "oh less people are dying now" is a weird way for people to twist themselves out of feeling any kind of concern for COVID or for the potential long term health issues that one who contracts COVID may experience. We simply don't have that data yet so seeing how casual people are and writing people's lives off in a deaths per capita way also seems like a way to force things back to normal asap because things are apparently so fragile that it would take forever for the country to recover. Why is it that people couldn't have just stayed home for a month, collect their stimulus and then reopen everything in stages? I mean that's what we're doing here and so far so good.

Anyway, like I said, my opinion of the situation in the USA is heavily biased so all of this may be meaningless anyway. Besides, I took Trumps advice and injected myself with disinfectant so I can never die and all is well anyway.
 
Step back for a moment and it becomes clear that there are two sides to this with everyone else stuck in the middle. One side is playing for political and economic control while the other is the all too typical normalcy bias where basically they are just walking Darwin awards waiting to happen due to lack of basic common sense such as refusing to wear masks or wash hands ect. The cherry on top is those beach and block parties those teens and twenty something extroverts are throwing which causes the case counts to spike with Florida being one of the best examples of this.
 
The media is a business like any other. Most news outlets gain/retain viewers by sensationalizing. I can tell a pretty damn good story if I embellish, but I would bore most people to tears if I went with the facts.

The "fear" vs. "reality" chart is surprising (and perhaps sensationalism itself), because I haven't actually read much that claims a high % of younger people are at serious risk from coronavirus complications (besides the usual "25 YEAR OLD SOMEWHERE DIES OF COVID" popping up in an ad). I have a friend that works in a hospital, and there was one person in their 30s that died of it here that he knows of, but that person did have multiple pre-existing conditions (which I have read). I don't even know that many people my age in person that are concerned about the possibility of fatality, mostly just concerned about the spread.

I myself am concerned about the spread (mostly for the sake of old and vulnerable people), because history has taught us that humans learn over time, and it's only been a few months. Such little time has passed that there are conflicting accounts from doctors and scientists as to what long-term effects the virus can have. It's much easier for me to say "it's just like the flu and the cold" than to admit "I don't fucking know."

As for shutting down the American economy, I don't think we would have had to worry about it if we followed suit with the countries that immediately contained the issue and had a low rate of spread afterward. Having a discrepancy between America's rate of infection and other countries is more ammunition for fear-mongering, so our inaction basically fucked us, and surprise surprise, now people are clearly panicking.

"The media should have more strongly questioned faulty academic models, unrealistically high fatality rates, lockdown efficacy, shifting goal posts, and the suppression of dissenting views by big tech. Had it done so, our public policy disaster may have been averted, or at least curtailed, potentially saving even more lives in the long run."

This statement is pretentious pontification coming from a journalist, lol...
 
noisebloom said:
The media is a business like any other. Most news outlets gain/retain viewers by sensationalizing. I can tell a pretty damn good story if I embellish, but I would bore most people to tears if I went with the facts.

The "fear" vs. "reality" chart is surprising (and perhaps sensationalism itself), because I haven't actually read much that claims a high % of younger people are at serious risk from coronavirus complications (besides the usual "25 YEAR OLD SOMEWHERE DIES OF COVID" popping up in an ad). I have a friend that works in a hospital, and there was one person in their 30s that died of it here that he knows of, but that person did have multiple pre-existing conditions (which I have read). I don't even know that many people my age in person that are concerned about the possibility of fatality, mostly just concerned about the spread.

I myself am concerned about the spread (mostly for the sake of old and vulnerable people), because history has taught us that humans learn over time, and it's only been a few months. Such little time has passed that there are conflicting accounts from doctors and scientists as to what long-term effects the virus can have. It's much easier for me to say "it's just like the flu and the cold" than to admit "I don't fucking know."

As for shutting down the American economy, I don't think we would have had to worry about it if we followed suit with the countries that immediately contained the issue and had a low rate of spread afterward. Having a discrepancy between America's rate of infection and other countries is more ammunition for fear-mongering, so our inaction basically fucked us, and surprise surprise, now people are clearly panicking.

"The media should have more strongly questioned faulty academic models, unrealistically high fatality rates, lockdown efficacy, shifting goal posts, and the suppression of dissenting views by big tech. Had it done so, our public policy disaster may have been averted, or at least curtailed, potentially saving even more lives in the long run."

This statement is pretentious pontification coming from a journalist, lol...
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I don't know man, I don't really see a strong correlation with how heavy the lockdown is and how many cases/deaths there are. If that's the case then the states that didn't lockdown should have the most cases and deaths and they don't seem to. I'm no statistician but I read the totals and I'm not really seeing lockdown being the determining factor. Or at least not the only determining factor.
 
Reason said:
I don't know man, I don't really see a strong correlation with how heavy the lockdown is and how many cases/deaths there are. If that's the case then the states that didn't lockdown should have the most cases and deaths and they don't seem to. I'm no statistician but I read the totals and I'm not really seeing lockdown being the determining factor. Or at least not the only determining factor.
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Density is a big factor. Areas that are less dense are less prone to spread. Lifting or not enforcing a lockdown in a less dense city may not make such a difference... I think it's the dense places that get screwed without mask mandates, lockdowns, etc. California and Minnesota have been able to keep their daily averages down (per capita) in the long-term compared to other states with highly populated areas. Minneapolis had a pretty bad outbreak at first, but they have things under control now. I don't think it's trivial to decrease the rate of infection, but there are definitely some places that have maintained it vs. seeing an increase.

This is just my opinion, and a lot of it is influenced by the numbers in Asia. Vietnam, South Korea, and other places with tens of millions of people were affected by COVID and don't report high per capita averages anymore. SK didn't even really lock down, but they got facemasks out quickly and were on top of things as far as testing. I have coworkers in Asia that were off work for the better part of a month right when they got hit, and now they are all back and all claim that people aren't really getting it as much anymore; I believe them.

I really think that we wouldn't had to have such a long-term lockdown in America if we would have worn facemasks initially and locked down for a few weeks. Now, it just seems like it's too pervasive - diminishing returns. I agree that 98% of the country will still be alive after this, but it's a shitty situation for people with health conditions that are still waiting on a vaccine.
 
noisebloom said:
Density is a big factor. Areas that are less dense are less prone to spread. Lifting or not enforcing a lockdown in a less dense city may not make such a difference... I think it's the dense places that get screwed without mask mandates, lockdowns, etc. California and Minnesota have been able to keep their daily averages down (per capita) in the long-term compared to other states with highly populated areas. Minneapolis had a pretty bad outbreak at first, but they have things under control now. I don't think it's trivial to decrease the rate of infection, but there are definitely some places that have maintained it vs. seeing an increase.

This is just my opinion, and a lot of it is influenced by the numbers in Asia. Vietnam, South Korea, and other places with tens of millions of people were affected by COVID and don't report high per capita averages anymore. SK didn't even really lock down, but they got facemasks out quickly and were on top of things as far as testing. I have coworkers in Asia that were off work for the better part of a month right when they got hit, and now they are all back and all claim that people aren't really getting it as much anymore; I believe them.

I really think that we wouldn't had to have such a long-term lockdown in America if we would have worn facemasks initially and locked down for a few weeks. Now, it just seems like it's too pervasive - diminishing returns. I agree that 98% of the country will still be alive after this, but it's a shitty situation for people with health conditions that are still waiting on a vaccine.
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I don't really see what more we could have done. I remember back before panic pieces when the media was telling us that quarantines are racist and ineffective
https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2...atine-travel-110750?__twitter_impression=true

Although the density point you made is certainly important I don't think it's that simple either.
 
Lol here's another article that has aged well:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outl...n-aggressive-government-response-coronavirus/

"Although this may assuage critics who insisted that the administration take more aggressive action, history and epidemiology warn us that such measures are unlikely to work. Respiratory diseases are not easily contained by travel bans or quarantines. Rather than contain an epidemic, harsh, coercive policies often scapegoat already-marginalized populations and intensify panic rather than quell it."
 
Reason said:
Lol here's another article that has aged well:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outl...n-aggressive-government-response-coronavirus/

"Although this may assuage critics who insisted that the administration take more aggressive action, history and epidemiology warn us that such measures are unlikely to work. Respiratory diseases are not easily contained by travel bans or quarantines. Rather than contain an epidemic, harsh, coercive policies often scapegoat already-marginalized populations and intensify panic rather than quell it."
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i posted a pic of the guy who owns this paper in your biden thread
 
Wyote said:
wtf happened to Belgium
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Belgium has included even suspected deaths from Covid-19 in their figures. There has been controversy over their counting.
Some countries do not include deaths in nursing homes. Belgium does.

Because Belgium are counting the mortality rate differently from other countries its hard to compare their figures with other countries.
 
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