With COVID cases rising throughout the country, the news is full of dire predictions about the spread of the disease. But while cases may be rising exponentially, hospitalizations and deaths aren’t. That’s why the fear-mongering is focusing on cases, making it appear as though COVID is more dangerous than it actually is.
When looking at the facts behind the numbers, you can get an understanding of just how dangerous COVID really is. But the media doesn’t like to publish those numbers. Instead, it likes to focus on individual hard cases, such as 20-somethings suffering COVID complications, so that people highly unlikely to suffer from COVID start believing that COVID is an incredibly contagious, incredibly deadly disease.
The perceptions of COVID and its deadliness are driven by the media, which is trying to push a narrative so that Americans will accept greater government control over their lives. But the reality of COVID isn’t that dire.
In the UK, a survey was recently conducted that took a look at the perceptions the general public held versus reality. The UK public believed that the average age of death of a COVID patient was 65, whereas it was actually 82.4, in a country in which the average life expectancy is 81.1.
UK respondents believed that 1 in 3 COVID patients suffered from “long” COVID, meaning the persistence of symptoms and complications from COVID for a period of weeks or months. In reality, only 1 in 20 patients suffered from long COVID.
And 41% of respondents believed that COVID was the number one cause of death in the UK, whereas it was only 19th in England and 24th in Wales. These survey results demonstrate that the media has done its job well in overstating the damage done by COVID. One can well imagine that surveys in the US would show similar results, with large percentages of Americans believing that COVID has killed millions in this country.
The only way we’ll get past this COVID nonsense and overcome the dictatorial rule of governors ruling by emergency decree is to make people aware of the dangers that COVID actually poses, using data to show them the reality of COVID rather than the fears propagated by the media. But as the saying goes, you can’t reason someone out of a position they haven’t reasoned themselves into.
Too many people in this country are afraid of COVID not because it’s a real danger, but because the media has scared them into thinking COVID is a uniquely deadly supervirus that will wreak havoc on anyone who catches it. Unless we’re able to convince our fellow Americans that the propaganda machine is working in overdrive to get them to fear COVID, we’re all going to suffer from the effects of lockdowns, mask mandates, and overbearing governors.