David - the New York Times used to be a great newspaper. It endeavored to present a picture of reality to its readers. Now, it's so partisan that it cannot be trusted.
E.g, Krugman writes "in spots like Arizona". He implies that there are many spots with inadequate testing capability. The Times article he links to by Sarah Kliff extends the problem to the entire country. She writes, "The United States’ coronavirus testing capacity has begun to strain as the pandemic continues to spread." In fact, the only example they give of backlogs is Phoenix, Arizona. AFAIK testing is conveniently available just about everywhere in the country.
Using statistical cherry picking, Krugman praises the Northeast (Democratic) Governors and faults Republican Governors, even though the Democrats' mortality rate is far, far worse. E.g. Deaths/m in NY is over TEN TIMES AS HIGH as in FL (1615 vs 158).
BTW if you want to see an intelligent discussion of Times's bias, here's a good article to read: https://www.smartertimes.com/1636/times-news-article-minimizes-church-arson
"The United States’ coronavirus testing capacity has begun to strain as the pandemic continues to spread."
She's not wrong there. The 7 day mean of Tests/cases was growing up until 2020-06-16. It's now fallen back down to where it was on 2020-05-23. It's almost unfathomable that the testing rate could grow as fast as the virus is at this point. With 47,341 new cases yesterday, is contact tracing even possible?
Your site has a few extra days that mine hasn't updated yet.
The latest data is 590877 tests / 45527 cases = ~13. It was over 20 just 8 days ago. You'd need over 900,000 tests today to get the test:case ratio back over 20.
The 7 day mean of tests/cases = 15.7. That peaked at 21.9 just 10 days ago. The last time it was below 15.7 was May 16. It's regressed a month in just over a week.
"BTW if you want to see an intelligent discussion of Times's bias, here's a good article to read: https://www.smartertimes.com/1636/times-news-article-minimizes-church-arson
DiC: Maybe I'm missing something but I'm not sure what the author of that article is complaining about. I don't think he read the article properly. He says "Eventually the Times gets down to explaining what the White House "rewrite" of the history of the "peaceful protesters" amounts to.The White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, the Times reports, "cited the fact that St. John's, where Mr. Trump posed for the cameras, 'was burning' the night before."
The Times news article corrects McEnanay on that point: "In fact, there was a relatively small fire in the basement that was quickly extinguished."
But the Times actually gave two examples of what they were talking about in the first paragraph. Namely Trump trying to suggest he was only in the white house bunker to examine it and that contrary to what McEnaney alleged many witnesses said the protests were peaceful when the police cleared the area for Trump's visit. He seems to have latched on to the part about the fire so he could say it was worse than the Times suggested by quoting the Episcopal News Service but leaves out the bit where the ENS say the church, quote: "sustained minor damage". He says the Times would have reported differently if the fire had been started by a Trump supporter or Republican senator but then admits that as the case is unsolved it could have been a "pro-racist-police provocateur who wanted to make the protesters look bad".
J.D. - yes the article was not inaccurate, but it was spin. Here are some examples
A. "insisting falsely that peaceful protesters near the White House were attacking the police...were throwing bricks and other objects at police officers" B. This is disputed, as the article admits. It is not a fact. The Times apparently didn't check with any of the policemen who were the alleged victims of the thrown bricks.
A. "[Ms. McEnany] also repeatedly insisted that “tear gas” was not used to disperse the crowd despite clear evidence from the scene that many of the protesters were sprayed with a harsh chemical irritant." B. The word "despite" implies that the Times is refuting McEnany's comment. Actually, her comment was accurate. The many reports of tear gas were false.
A. "she cited the fact that St. John’s, where Mr. Trump posed for the cameras, “was burning” the night before. In fact, there was a relatively small fire in the basement that was quickly extinguished." B. The words "in fact" imply that her comment is being refuted. There was indeed a fire.
A. "There was a ... fire" B. They could have written, "A fire had likely be set by a member of the crowd." BTW since there was probably an arsonist in the crowd, it was not completely peaceful.
A. "relatively small, quickly extinguished" - B. How small? How quickly? It would have been more informative to report that the fire, "completely destroyed the nursery room of the church, according to the church's rector, and that there were smoke and water damage to surrounding areas." Also, any fire is a big deal. Any fire carries the risk of spreading and destroying the whole building.
A."the authorities used chemical agents to make them move so that Mr. Trump could have his picture taken at a nearby church." B. This is unsupported. Nobody confirmed that the people were moved so that Trump could make a speech there. It's just a deduction. OTOH the contrary was confirmed by two people. AG Barr and the head of the local police unit both said the the order to clear that area was based on security concerns.
This is disputed, as the article admits. It is not a fact. The Times apparently didn't check with any of the policemen who were the alleged victims of the thrown bricks. From the article: "In fact, witness reports from religious leaders, activists, bystanders and journalists from multiple news organizations documented no such activity in the hours before a concerted effort was made to move the protesters away from St. John’s Church." I can see nowhere in the article where it says this was disputed by anyone who was there.
Actually, her comment was accurate. The many reports of tear gas were false. From Factcheck: "According to the Scientific American and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, pepper spray is a type of “tear gas” or “riot control agent.” https://www.factcheck.org/2020/06/the-semantics-of-tear-gas-versus-pepper-spray/
As for the fire, the very source they quoted called it a minor fire. Why did they leave that bit out? And your last bit about security concerns doesn't contradict that it was done so that Trump could have his picture took.
J.D. What I read was that smoke was used to get the crowd to obey legal orders to move. Do you have a cite showing that pepper spray was used?
The word "minor" is vague, as is "relatively small" as is "quickly extinguished". Better and less biased reporting would be the specific facts that the fire completely destroyed the nursery room of the church, according to the church's rector, and that there were smoke and water damage to surrounding areas.
Many sources said they used pepper spray and smoke. This is one https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/06/13/floyd-protests-secret-service-used-pepper-spray-trump-photo-op/3184223001/ On the subject of whether the NYT publishes reliable information compared to Trump supporting media there is a study just published. This is one of its conclusions A US national probability-based survey during the early days of the SARS-CoV-2 spread in the US showed that, above and beyond respondents’ political party, mainstream broadcast media use (e.g., NBC News) correlated with accurate information about the disease's lethality, and mainstream print media use (e.g., the New York Times) correlated with accurate beliefs about protection from infection. In addition, conservative media use (e.g., Fox News) correlated with conspiracy theories including believing that some in the CDC were exaggerating the seriousness of the virus to undermine the presidency of Donald Trump. Which confirms what I've said before and with what I have observed online. Sources like Fox News are not only usually inaccurate, they are dangerously inaccurate. People who are misinformed during an emergency are likely to have a higher chance of dying. Link to the study, https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/April19_FORMATTED_COVID-19-Survey.pdf
J.D. - thanks for the link. I don't ever watch Fox News. My favorite Trump-supporting media is a blog called Instapundit. I believe Instapundit is quite accurate. Of course, Instapundit only covers items that interests them. It doesn't provide broad coverage.
I have no doubt that the New York Times is far more biased and a lot less accurate than it was in the 1950's and 1960's. The deterioration of this once-great newspaper is a big loss to the nation, particularly since no other media source stepped up to provide the kind of accuracy that the Times used to provide. Today, there is no source that I trust. The best I can do is to read both sides and follow links to original sources, when they're available.
Krugman is an opinion writer for the NYT, not a journalist. He's writing for their op-ed section -- that's "opinion-editorial." So he's allowed to be biased. He doesn't speak for the newspaper as a whole, but only for himself. That doesn't mean he's wrong. (He's widely considered one of the best economists of his generation; he's a Nobel Laureate.) In this article he makes a lot of good points.
If you look at where the virus is currently exploding -- and here's a graph for all 50 states
Florida Arizona South Carolina Texas Nevada Mississippi Georgia Louisiana
I'm not sure about all if these, but many -- FL, AZ, TX, NV, GA -- are all run by Republicans and all but laughed in the face of the virus; being obsequious to Trump was more important than listening to scientists and public health experts and protecting their own citizens. Well, now who's laughing -- they're all getting slammed and politicians there have only themselves to blame. They should perhaps even be held criminally negligent.
Here's a Texan who's followed her foolish governor closely:
"How Texas Swaggered Into a Coronavirus Disaster: The state wanted to be among the first to reopen. It’s now dealing with the consequences," Mimi Swartz, NYT 6/28/20 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/28/opinion/texas-coronavirus.html
Republican's inability to employ evidence-based medicine during this pandemic makes us look like we're from the stone age. Trump doesn't even try anymore, and Pence now lies like Trump.
David - Krugman has been a disappointment to me. As you say, he's a brilliant economist, but he rarely writes about economics. He mostly parrots whatever simple-minded liberal things other liberal sites are saying. He was wildly wrong in predicting economic disaster under Trump.
Also, in the one area where I know as much as he does, namely Social Security, he wrote several deceptive columns.
Having now had a look at Instapundit I think it probably suggests the conclusions of that study I linked to are correct. Conservative bias in an emergency can be dangerous. They not only usually link to articles because they have a Conservative bias they also include a snarky comment to the link such as this one to a Daily Mail article about social distancing in the UK
APPARENTLY THE ONLY THING YOU NEED SUPER-INTENSE DOUBLE-BLIND EVIDENCE FOR IS HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE. EVERYTHING ELSE YOU JUST GO WITH YOUR GUT AND CALL IT ‘SCIENCE.’
The inference here is that the two things are the same (they're not) and that they shouldn't have looked for proof that a drug Trump kept pushing actually saved lies. Perhaps they should have just took the word of Raoult Didier that his flawed study proved hydroxychloroquine was 100% effective. Another link is to an article by a 'journalist, author and screenwriter' which starts with a long preamble suggesting again that its all a Democratic hoax to win the November election. He then uses data and selective quotes to "prove" his point but until we have accurate antibody testing and have accurate figures for the number of deaths nobody knows how lethal COVID-19 is. I would rather use credible sources rather than put my families lives at risks. It was clear to me back in January that the virus had the potential to be a significant risk to my wife because of age and pre-existing conditions. We have made mostly the right choices to protect ourselves because we have ignored biased sources.
David, Krugman *often* writes about economic, but applied to current situations, not textbook economics. I find that he's got plenty of his own insights, but of course you're free to differ.
I'm not going to address the other parts of your reply, because they're not about my original point, which is that several red states refused to take the virus seriously and now they, and more importantly their citizens, are now getting hit harshly.
The lesson is that you can't have an economy in a pandemic. You have to quash the pandemic first, hard.
David and J.D. - thanks for looking at Instapundit. I continue to recommend that everyone follow some conservative news source as a supplement to mainstream and liberal news sources. I read all sides every day. A certain number of important stories are reported only on conservative sites.
I read Drudge, the National Review, follow Rich Lowry and Jonah Goldberg and Bill Kristol and WSJ on Twitter, and subscribe to the paper WSJ when they offer me a deal. I just subscribed to the paper National Review.
Instapundit is very old -- I read it back in 2004-5. His posts then, at least, were short and pithy and I didn't find much of value there. Last time I looked he was hawking lots of products to make money.
For primary news I read the NYT and WaPo. I don't find their journalism to be biased -- I find it to be excellent, and they break more important stories than practically anyone, like the current one of Russians paying the Taliban a bounty to kill American soldiers. If there was a news source that I felt was biased in either direction, I'd avoid it completely.
A big talking point for republicans these days is COVID deaths. It is very difficult to argue that infections in the spike states are in any sense under control.But where are the expected deaths? The due date to see them is now and, except for Arizona, they are not showing up.
If we don't see significant deaths associated with the exploding cases, the governors are going to start again to ignore the case numbers and plough through to herd immunity(which itself might be not as great as advertised). Also, death isn't the only thing that can go wrong when you have this virus.
Maybe it's because more young people infected? Maybe the virus is benignly mutating? Not many facts on this anomaly.
Pete, good point. I've seen a couple of things related to the death rate:
1) maybe, as you wrote, it's that younger people are making up more of the cases and they don't die relatively as frequently
2) maybe doctors are getting better at treating the COVID cases that do require hospitalization
3) increased testing is finding more (relatively) minor cases that wouldn't have required ER attention or otherwise come to the medical community's attention before
4) since deaths lag cases, maybe the increase in deaths just hasn't shown up yet
24 comments:
David - the New York Times used to be a great newspaper. It endeavored to present a picture of reality to its readers. Now, it's so partisan that it cannot be trusted.
E.g, Krugman writes "in spots like Arizona". He implies that there are many spots with inadequate testing capability. The Times article he links to by Sarah Kliff extends the problem to the entire country. She writes, "The United States’ coronavirus testing capacity has begun to strain as the pandemic continues to spread." In fact, the only example they give of backlogs is Phoenix, Arizona. AFAIK testing is conveniently available just about everywhere in the country.
Using statistical cherry picking, Krugman praises the Northeast (Democratic) Governors and faults Republican Governors, even though the Democrats' mortality rate is far, far worse. E.g. Deaths/m in NY is over TEN TIMES AS HIGH as in FL (1615 vs 158).
Cheers
BTW if you want to see an intelligent discussion of Times's bias, here's a good article to read: https://www.smartertimes.com/1636/times-news-article-minimizes-church-arson
Cheers
"The United States’ coronavirus testing capacity has begun to strain as the pandemic continues to spread."
She's not wrong there. The 7 day mean of Tests/cases was growing up until 2020-06-16. It's now fallen back down to where it was on 2020-05-23. It's almost unfathomable that the testing rate could grow as fast as the virus is at this point. With 47,341 new cases yesterday, is contact tracing even possible?
According to https://covidtracking.com/data/us-daily the number of tests is increasing. The average of the last three days is over 600,000.
Cheers
Yes. Tests are growing. Cases are also growing. Tests/Cases is dropping.
Your site has a few extra days that mine hasn't updated yet.
The latest data is 590877 tests / 45527 cases = ~13. It was over 20 just 8 days ago. You'd need over 900,000 tests today to get the test:case ratio back over 20.
The 7 day mean of tests/cases = 15.7. That peaked at 21.9 just 10 days ago. The last time it was below 15.7 was May 16. It's regressed a month in just over a week.
Testing is not keeping up.
"BTW if you want to see an intelligent discussion of Times's bias, here's a good article to read: https://www.smartertimes.com/1636/times-news-article-minimizes-church-arson
DiC: Maybe I'm missing something but I'm not sure what the author of that article is complaining about. I don't think he read the article properly. He says
"Eventually the Times gets down to explaining what the White House "rewrite" of the history of the "peaceful protesters" amounts to.The White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, the Times reports, "cited the fact that St. John's, where Mr. Trump posed for the cameras, 'was burning' the night before."
The Times news article corrects McEnanay on that point: "In fact, there was a relatively small fire in the basement that was quickly extinguished."
But the Times actually gave two examples of what they were talking about in the first paragraph. Namely Trump trying to suggest he was only in the white house bunker to examine it and that contrary to what McEnaney alleged many witnesses said the protests were peaceful when the police cleared the area for Trump's visit. He seems to have latched on to the part about the fire so he could say it was worse than the Times suggested by quoting the Episcopal News Service but leaves out the bit where the ENS say the church, quote: "sustained minor damage". He says the Times would have reported differently if the fire had been started by a Trump supporter or Republican senator but then admits that as the case is unsolved it could have been a "pro-racist-police provocateur who wanted to make the protesters look bad".
J.D. - yes the article was not inaccurate, but it was spin. Here are some examples
A. "insisting falsely that peaceful protesters near the White House were attacking the police...were throwing bricks and other objects at police officers"
B. This is disputed, as the article admits. It is not a fact. The Times apparently didn't check with any of the policemen who were the alleged victims of the thrown bricks.
A. "[Ms. McEnany] also repeatedly insisted that “tear gas” was not used to disperse the crowd despite clear evidence from the scene that many of the protesters were sprayed with a harsh chemical irritant."
B. The word "despite" implies that the Times is refuting McEnany's comment. Actually, her comment was accurate. The many reports of tear gas were false.
A. "she cited the fact that St. John’s, where Mr. Trump posed for the cameras, “was burning” the night before. In fact, there was a relatively small fire in the basement that was quickly extinguished."
B. The words "in fact" imply that her comment is being refuted. There was indeed a fire.
A. "There was a ... fire"
B. They could have written, "A fire had likely be set by a member of the crowd." BTW since there was probably an arsonist in the crowd, it was not completely peaceful.
A. "relatively small, quickly extinguished" -
B. How small? How quickly? It would have been more informative to report that the fire, "completely destroyed the nursery room of the church, according to the church's rector, and that there were smoke and water damage to surrounding areas." Also, any fire is a big deal. Any fire carries the risk of spreading and destroying the whole building.
A."the authorities used chemical agents to make them move so that Mr. Trump could have his picture taken at a nearby church."
B. This is unsupported. Nobody confirmed that the people were moved so that Trump could make a speech there. It's just a deduction. OTOH the contrary was confirmed by two people. AG Barr and the head of the local police unit both said the the order to clear that area was based on security concerns.
Cheers
J.D. - yes the article was not inaccurate
Well that's a start.
This is disputed, as the article admits. It is not a fact. The Times apparently didn't check with any of the policemen who were the alleged victims of the thrown bricks.
From the article:
"In fact, witness reports from religious leaders, activists, bystanders and journalists from multiple news organizations documented no such activity in the hours before a concerted effort was made to move the protesters away from St. John’s Church."
I can see nowhere in the article where it says this was disputed by anyone who was there.
Actually, her comment was accurate. The many reports of tear gas were false.
From Factcheck: "According to the Scientific American and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, pepper spray is a type of “tear gas” or “riot control agent.”
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/06/the-semantics-of-tear-gas-versus-pepper-spray/
As for the fire, the very source they quoted called it a minor fire. Why did they leave that bit out? And your last bit about security concerns doesn't contradict that it was done so that Trump could have his picture took.
J.D. What I read was that smoke was used to get the crowd to obey legal orders to move. Do you have a cite showing that pepper spray was used?
The word "minor" is vague, as is "relatively small" as is "quickly extinguished". Better and less biased reporting would be the specific facts that the fire completely destroyed the nursery room of the church, according to the church's rector, and that there were smoke and water damage to surrounding areas.
Cheers
Many sources said they used pepper spray and smoke. This is one
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/06/13/floyd-protests-secret-service-used-pepper-spray-trump-photo-op/3184223001/
On the subject of whether the NYT publishes reliable information compared to Trump supporting media there is a study just published.
This is one of its conclusions
A US national probability-based survey during the early days of the SARS-CoV-2 spread in the US showed
that, above and beyond respondents’ political party, mainstream broadcast media use (e.g., NBC News) correlated with accurate information about the disease's lethality, and mainstream print media use (e.g., the New York Times) correlated with accurate beliefs about protection from infection. In addition, conservative media use (e.g., Fox News) correlated with conspiracy theories including believing that some in the CDC were exaggerating the seriousness of the virus to undermine the presidency of Donald Trump.
Which confirms what I've said before and with what I have observed online. Sources like Fox News are not only usually inaccurate, they are dangerously inaccurate. People who are misinformed during an emergency are likely to have a higher chance of dying.
Link to the study, https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/April19_FORMATTED_COVID-19-Survey.pdf
J.D. - thanks for the link. I don't ever watch Fox News. My favorite Trump-supporting media is a blog called Instapundit. I believe Instapundit is quite accurate. Of course, Instapundit only covers items that interests them. It doesn't provide broad coverage.
I have no doubt that the New York Times is far more biased and a lot less accurate than it was in the 1950's and 1960's. The deterioration of this once-great newspaper is a big loss to the nation, particularly since no other media source stepped up to provide the kind of accuracy that the Times used to provide. Today, there is no source that I trust. The best I can do is to read both sides and follow links to original sources, when they're available.
Cheers
David,
I took the weekend away from my computer.
Krugman is an opinion writer for the NYT, not a journalist. He's writing for their op-ed section -- that's "opinion-editorial." So he's allowed to be biased. He doesn't speak for the newspaper as a whole, but only for himself. That doesn't mean he's wrong. (He's widely considered one of the best economists of his generation; he's a Nobel Laureate.) In this article he makes a lot of good points.
If you look at where the virus is currently exploding -- and here's a graph for all 50 states
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/coronavirus-us-cases-deaths/
the states where it's surging are all red states:
Florida
Arizona
South Carolina
Texas
Nevada
Mississippi
Georgia
Louisiana
I'm not sure about all if these, but many -- FL, AZ, TX, NV, GA -- are all run by Republicans and all but laughed in the face of the virus; being obsequious to Trump was more important than listening to scientists and public health experts and protecting their own citizens. Well, now who's laughing -- they're all getting slammed and politicians there have only themselves to blame. They should perhaps even be held criminally negligent.
Here's a Texan who's followed her foolish governor closely:
"How Texas Swaggered Into a Coronavirus Disaster: The state wanted to be among the first to reopen. It’s now dealing with the consequences,"
Mimi Swartz, NYT 6/28/20
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/28/opinion/texas-coronavirus.html
Republican's inability to employ evidence-based medicine during this pandemic makes us look like we're from the stone age. Trump doesn't even try anymore, and Pence now lies like Trump.
David - Krugman has been a disappointment to me. As you say, he's a brilliant economist, but he rarely writes about economics. He mostly parrots whatever simple-minded liberal things other liberal sites are saying. He was wildly wrong in predicting economic disaster under Trump.
Also, in the one area where I know as much as he does, namely Social Security, he wrote several deceptive columns.
Cheers
Having now had a look at Instapundit I think it probably suggests the conclusions of that study I linked to are correct. Conservative bias in an emergency can be dangerous. They not only usually link to articles because they have a Conservative bias they also include a snarky comment to the link such as this one to a Daily Mail article about social distancing in the UK
APPARENTLY THE ONLY THING YOU NEED SUPER-INTENSE DOUBLE-BLIND EVIDENCE FOR IS HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE. EVERYTHING ELSE YOU JUST GO WITH YOUR GUT AND CALL IT ‘SCIENCE.’
The inference here is that the two things are the same (they're not) and that they shouldn't have looked for proof that a drug Trump kept pushing actually saved lies. Perhaps they should have just took the word of Raoult Didier that his flawed study proved hydroxychloroquine was 100% effective.
Another link is to an article by a 'journalist, author and screenwriter' which starts with a long preamble suggesting again that its all a Democratic hoax to win the November election. He then uses data and selective quotes to "prove" his point but until we have accurate antibody testing and have accurate figures for the number of deaths nobody knows how lethal COVID-19 is. I would rather use credible sources rather than put my families lives at risks. It was clear to me back in January that the virus had the potential to be a significant risk to my wife because of age and pre-existing conditions. We have made mostly the right choices to protect ourselves because we have ignored biased sources.
I agree with JD - I wouldn't begin to think of getting my news from Instapundit.
David, Krugman *often* writes about economic, but applied to current situations, not textbook economics. I find that he's got plenty of his own insights, but of course you're free to differ.
I'm not going to address the other parts of your reply, because they're not about my original point, which is that several red states refused to take the virus seriously and now they, and more importantly their citizens, are now getting hit harshly.
The lesson is that you can't have an economy in a pandemic. You have to quash the pandemic first, hard.
David and J.D. - thanks for looking at Instapundit. I continue to recommend that everyone follow some conservative news source as a supplement to mainstream and liberal news sources. I read all sides every day. A certain number of important stories are reported only on conservative sites.
Cheers
I read Drudge, the National Review, follow Rich Lowry and Jonah Goldberg and Bill Kristol and WSJ on Twitter, and subscribe to the paper WSJ when they offer me a deal. I just subscribed to the paper National Review.
Instapundit is very old -- I read it back in 2004-5. His posts then, at least, were short and pithy and I didn't find much of value there. Last time I looked he was hawking lots of products to make money.
For primary news I read the NYT and WaPo. I don't find their journalism to be biased -- I find it to be excellent, and they break more important stories than practically anyone, like the current one of Russians paying the Taliban a bounty to kill American soldiers. If there was a news source that I felt was biased in either direction, I'd avoid it completely.
On another note related to COVID:
A big talking point for republicans these days is COVID deaths. It is very difficult to argue that infections in the spike states are in any sense under control.But where are the expected deaths? The due date to see them is now and, except for Arizona, they are not showing up.
If we don't see significant deaths associated with the exploding cases, the governors are going to start again to ignore the case numbers and plough through to herd immunity(which itself might be not as great as advertised). Also, death isn't the only thing that can go wrong when you have this virus.
Maybe it's because more young people infected? Maybe the virus is benignly mutating? Not many facts on this anomaly.
Pete, good point. I've seen a couple of things related to the death rate:
1) maybe, as you wrote, it's that younger people are making up more of the cases and they don't die relatively as frequently
2) maybe doctors are getting better at treating the COVID cases that do require hospitalization
3) increased testing is finding more (relatively) minor cases that wouldn't have required ER attention or otherwise come to the medical community's attention before
4) since deaths lag cases, maybe the increase in deaths just hasn't shown up yet
I continue to recommend that everyone follow some conservative news source as a supplement to mainstream and liberal news sources.
My sense is that if you read sources from the right and the left you fill your head with two kinds of nonsense.
Here's a story about asymptomatic young people:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/florida-hospitals-are-flooded-with-partying-young-people?ref=home
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