# The media is driving our defensive actions not science! **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [April 8, 2020, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-is-driving-our-defensive-actions-not-science/851355 "2020-04-08T16:41:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-is-driving-our-defensive-actions-not-science/851355/121 "2020-04-12T19:34:48Z")
> [@RioRico](#): > > Can you identify the media you say are driving US or foreign government actions? > [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > I listen to primarily the more liberal news stations and I am capable of forming my own opinions. The media should be held accountable for what they are doing with this and yes I agree it is a major catastrophe but it is still something we have to get through and keep on living. In other words NO, you can’t or won’t identify the media you dislike. > [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > The first question we need answered that will hopefully be answered soon is how many people are actually getting this virus. based on that we can have much more accurate estimates of deaths and hospitalization rates. We can judge total mortality as a function of this pandemic. Since ubiquitous testing of the living and dead ain’t happening, the best index IMHO is a count of EXCESS deaths. How many more people died in the first months of 2020 than the same period averaged in prior years? One data point: NYC paramedics are seeing 10x as many at-home deaths as usual. Whether each would have tested positive is irrelevant. “Collateral damage” still means dead - _with_ the virus if not _from_ it. But this has nothing to do with media distraction, other than the White House’s Fox News cabinet supplying deadly advice. Once again: Identify the media you dislike. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2020, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-is-driving-our-defensive-actions-not-science/851355/122 "2020-04-12T20:10:53Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > Why aren’t the Dr’s such as yourself here and on other media sites asking the obvious questions needed to deal with this virus. > > The first question we need answered that will hopefully be answered soon is how many people are actually getting this virus. based on that we can have much more accurate estimates of deaths and hospitalization rates. > > Once that question is answered we can start dealing with the real obvious most important questions. If we have a death rate in non senior adults of less than 1% what seems to be the risk factors that are showing up in that 1%? Obesity? Diabetes? asthma? whatever?. Once we know these things we can lower death rates even more. For some reason strategies and plans of attack we are not hearing anything about because everything is so hate driven right now. This virus is loaded with identifiable markers that can be worked with, I am quite sure the experts are working on these things but why is the public purposely being kept in the dark? We both know the answer to that question. I sincerely don’t know the answer to that question. This isn’t a gotcha. I don’t understand what you are implying. I think literally everyone wants to open up the economy again as soon as possible. No one likes this. No one is benefiting from this. But it has to be safe. You are in the “bargaining” phase–the economy died, and you are trying to negotiate. If we sacrifice grandma, can we fix it? What if we sacrifice lots of grandmas? But it doesn’t work that way. It’s dead if we open it up, because a million dead and an overwhelmed infrastructure will kill it. It’s dead if we don’t–economic activity has ground to a halt. **It’s sunk cost**. The only question is what course of action leaves us in a healthier position to rebuild, after–and to my mind, rebuilding after a sustained pause is a hell of a lot more feasible than rebuilding after a meaningful amount of your productive capacity has been destroyed. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2020, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-is-driving-our-defensive-actions-not-science/851355/123 "2020-04-13T12:55:15Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > Why aren’t the Dr’s such as yourself here and on other media sites asking the obvious questions needed to deal with this virus. > > The first question we need answered that will hopefully be answered soon is how many people are actually getting this virus. based on that we can have much more accurate estimates of deaths and hospitalization rates. WTF? What media are \*you \* watching? Every time I turn on the news it is filed with doctors (including Dr. Fauci) and commentators extolling the point that we lack the relevant data because we are not doing enough testing. And that is not helped by the President claiming that anyone who needs a test can get one (false), and declaring that we don’t need and won’t do mass testing to reopen the economy. > [@](#): > > Once that question is answered we can start dealing with the real obvious most important questions. If we have a death rate in non senior adults of less than 1% what seems to be the risk factors that are showing up in that 1%? Obesity? Diabetes? asthma? whatever?. Once we know these things we can lower death rates even more. For some reason strategies and plans of attack we are not hearing anything about because everything is so hate driven right now. This virus is loaded with identifiable markers that can be worked with, I am quite sure the experts are working on these things but why is the public purposely being kept in the dark? We both know the answer to that question. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2020, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-is-driving-our-defensive-actions-not-science/851355/124 "2020-04-13T13:16:53Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > why is the public purposely being kept in the dark? We both know the answer to that question. To mangle a well known aphorism, the media you get you deserve. I have no idea what media you are listening to, but the rest of us have absolutely no trouble at all finding the answers to these questions, or more appropriately, the current state of understanding. This board is filled with good information. There are of course well know media outlets that have become so partisan that you cannot trust much of anything that comes from them. A very large part of that problem is due to one of my countrymen, and I live in the city where he owned his first newspaper, the one from which his entire empire is named. We are not proud of that. The scientific answers are not always what people want to hear. But this isn’t a debate. Nor is science a democracy. Science takes time, and no amount of stamping of feet and tantrums will fix that. Trying to push things just leads to bad science and bad outcomes. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2020, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-is-driving-our-defensive-actions-not-science/851355/125 "2020-04-13T13:56:06Z")
> [@RioRico](#): > > We can judge total mortality as a function of this pandemic. Since ubiquitous testing of the living and dead ain’t happening, the best index IMHO is a count of EXCESS deaths. How many more people died in the first months of 2020 than the same period averaged in prior years? One data point: NYC paramedics are seeing 10x as many at-home deaths as usual. Whether each would have tested positive is irrelevant. “Collateral damage” still means dead - _with_ the virus if not _from_ it. Right. Part of the reason you don’t want to overwhelm the system is not just that more people with bad cases of Covid19 will die, or that some who could have been treated early and recovered won’t make it through the door, but ALSO that more people will die from not getting care for _other, treatable_ conditions because they’ve lost access to care or because the providers themselves have been taken out. (BTW excess morality analysis is what was done in Puerto Rico the year after Hurricane Maria, for the first time rather than just count those who died as a direct or first-degree proximate consequence of the storm damage. so instead of dozens by the traditional measire, the studies said it was thousands. When the studies came out they were \*immediately \*politically weaponized with people variously taking the higher or lower estimates in order to take a swipe at whichever side they did not like) > [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > The scientific answers are not always what people want to hear. But this isn’t a debate. Nor is science a democracy. And that absolutely terrifies a lot of our public. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2020, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-is-driving-our-defensive-actions-not-science/851355/126 "2020-04-13T14:06:04Z")
Excess deaths won’t automatically give you a better vision of what’s happened. There is a lot of talk about how the hospitals aren’t see as many other emergencies (like heart attack and stroke). Be prepared for a decent death toll from the stay at home orders/fear of covid when this is over, with people staying home and ignoring dangerous symptoms of non-covid problems. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2020, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-is-driving-our-defensive-actions-not-science/851355/127 "2020-04-13T14:19:49Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Excess deaths won’t automatically give you a better vision of what’s happened. There is a lot of talk about how the hospitals aren’t see as many other emergencies (like heart attack and stroke). Be prepared for a decent death toll from the stay at home orders/fear of covid when this is over, with people staying home and ignoring dangerous symptoms of non-covid problems. Theres a very valid fear when it comes to going to the hospital right now. You could be sick with one thing, go in to the hospital, catch the virus, suffer complications to your initial condition, and die. That’s why social distancing is so important. Posts like yours that are designed to sow doubt about these measures only make that situation worse. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2020, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-is-driving-our-defensive-actions-not-science/851355/128 "2020-04-13T14:35:18Z")
> [@RioRico](#): > > We can judge total mortality as a function of this pandemic. Since ubiquitous testing of the living and dead ain’t happening, the best index IMHO is a count of EXCESS deaths. How many more people died in the first months of 2020 than the same period averaged in prior years? One data point: NYC paramedics are seeing 10x as many at-home deaths as usual. Whether each would have tested positive is irrelevant. “Collateral damage” still means dead - _with_ the virus if not _from_ it. Right. Part of the reason you don’t want to overwhelm the system is not just that more people with bad cases of Covid19 will die, or that some who could have been treated early and recovered won’t make it through the door, but ALSO that more people will die from not getting care for _other, treatable_ conditions because they’ve lost access to care or because the providers themselves have been taken out. (BTW excess morality analysis is what was done in Puerto Rico the year after Hurricane Maria, for the first time rather than just count those who died as a direct or first-degree proximate consequence of the storm damage. so instead of dozens by the traditional measire, the studies said it was thousands. When the studies came out they were \*immediately \*politically weaponized with people variously taking the higher or lower estimates in order to take a swipe at whichever side they did not like) > [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > The scientific answers are not always what people want to hear. But this isn’t a debate. Nor is science a democracy. And that absolutely terrifies a lot of our public. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2020, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-is-driving-our-defensive-actions-not-science/851355/129 "2020-04-13T14:59:07Z")
(OK the doubleposting glitch is getting strange. 40 minutes apart?) ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2020, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-is-driving-our-defensive-actions-not-science/851355/130 "2020-04-13T15:14:18Z")
Lets imagine the threat was not an insidious contagion, let’s say it’s a meteor headed towards the earth. Maybe not as big as the one that offed the dinosaurs, but something which will impact the world in a bad way causing lots of death and even changes after the initial impact. The scientists and military say that they are unable to shoot it out of our way before it gets here, all they can do is try and evacuate the area that will be hit, keep people away from shores in case of a tsunami, and prepare for an event which will change things on this planet. The media reports these things. And how does the OP (and others like the OP) react? “We should be able to go to ground zero, why is the media saying we cannot? Ground zero happens to be my backyard, why do I have to listen to the media? The President has said that we can shoot nukes at the meteor, so let’s do that!” (Narrator’s Voice: The President is wrong, scientists say the technology is not available) Such a sense of entitlement from people is hilarious to me. Sorry but sometimes things that are unfair happen, and sometimes that unfairness is on a global scale. We all want this to end, we want to get back to “normal,” but that’s not possible and screaming that everyone who says otherwise is a liar doesn’t help. If this was a zombie outbreak, I know which people would be eaten. I also know that their last thoughts as they are pounced upon by the zombie horde will be to decry how unfair it all is. Meanwhile the people who accepted the situation and took precautions that were terrible and inconvenient and life-changing were still in a terrible, inconvenient spot where their life changed dramatically, but at least they weren’t zombie food. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2020, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-is-driving-our-defensive-actions-not-science/851355/131 "2020-04-13T19:11:28Z")
Sorry, premature post. > [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > Once that question is answered we can start dealing with the real obvious most important questions. If we have a death rate in non senior adults of less than 1% what seems to be the risk factors that are showing up in that 1%? Obesity? Diabetes? asthma? whatever?. Once we know these things we can lower death rates even more. You act as if nobody is asking these questions, but I hear them energy time I turn on the TV. Also, there have been serious (i.e. needing ventilators and an induced coma) in college age and younger kids with no history of those conditions. Otherwise healthy adults are getting killed. Those conditions may make a patient at greater risk of serious outcomes, but they aren’t perquisites for severe cases. > [@](#): > > For some reason strategies and plans of attack we are not hearing anything about because everything is so hate driven right now. This virus is loaded with identifiable markers that can be worked with, I am quite sure the experts are working on these things They are working on things, from motivations using chlorquinaquin and other medications to trying antivirals like the one that Japan is pushing, to using donated plasma to collect antibodies and see if transplanting them helps. There are studies underway for all of those. There’s also discussion of how to phase back in, whether geographically or by age groups or likely both. But the biggest need to do any of it is widespread rapid testing, both for the virus and for antibodies. Only then can rational plans be enacted. > [@](#): > > but why is the public purposely being kept in the dark? We both know the answer to that question. Because they’re listening to the President? Because Fox news would rather make light of the situation than actually consider the health effects and ramifications? Seriously, CNN was replaying this week’s episode of the Coronavirus Town Hall with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, so my dad turned on Fox to see what they were saying. They were joking around about how people were having to put off weddings, chortle. WTF? ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2020, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-is-driving-our-defensive-actions-not-science/851355/132 "2020-04-13T21:46:16Z")
Spain is sending some people back to work despite still having several hundred deaths a day. We should keep an eye on them the next couple of weeks, and see how well it works out. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-is-driving-our-defensive-actions-not-science/851355/133 "2020-04-19T18:19:48Z")
USA Today just did a Fact Check on the “herd immunity” claims by Knut Wittkowski, which is the article I was talking about earlier (which I’m still pretty sure got the OP worked up but he has yet to reply to my asking twice). Original article: [Epidemiologist: Coronavirus could be ‘exterminated’ if lockdowns were lifted | The College Fix](https://www.thecollegefix.com/epidemiologist-coronavirus-could-be-exterminated-if-lockdowns-were-lifted/) USA Today article: [Fact check: Herd immunity would not fully stop spread of coronavirus](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/18/fact-check-herd-immunity-would-not-fully-stop-spread-coronavirus/5156368002/) Buzzfeed article about College Fix and Wittowski: [The College Fix Was Founded To Fight Culture Wars On Campus. But Its Biggest Hit Is About The Coronavirus](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/janelytvynenko/college-fix-coronavirus-herd-immunity) Wittkowski’s former employer’s statement about the College Fix article: [The Rockefeller University » The Rockefeller University releases statement concerning Knut Wittkowski](https://www.rockefeller.edu/news/27872-rockefeller-university-releases-statement-concerning-dr-knut-wittkowski/) ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2020, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-is-driving-our-defensive-actions-not-science/851355/134 "2020-04-19T19:36:50Z")
Yeah, Sweden tried the whole Herd immunity thing. Let’s see how it’s working out for them… [Oh dear](https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2020/04/17/14/image.png). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-media-is-driving-our-defensive-actions-not-science/851355.md?page=6)