5 ms·

every news outlet is doing that. every political leader (garcetti in LA particularly) is doing that. it foments fear and hysteria. it's infuriating. news sites

every news outlet is doing that. every political leader (garcetti in LA particularly) is doing that. it foments fear and hysteria. it's infuriating. news sites post infection/death numbers for covid front and center, conveniently ignoring the 98-99% of non-covid deaths that are just as tragic and heartbreaking. they did that during 9/11 and for every mass shooting since. it's sickening.

wilg 7y ago
so your belief is that information about deaths from a current pandemic or terrorist attack is not newsworthy? what do you think news is?
- jshevek 7y ago
  >so your belief is that information about deaths from a current pandemic or terrorist attack is not newsworthy? You misrepresent the parent comment. In no way did they imply that information about deaths is not newsworthy. We have more choices here than two extremes.
  - wilg 7y ago
    I actually was asking a question of the parent commenter.
    - jshevek 7y ago
      You phrased your response in the form of a question, but in general that format doesn't preclude a commentator from misrepresenting another's views. Your comment was of the form: >"so [statement A]? [question predicated on statement A]?" In this case, statement A was a non-sequitur derived from an uncharitable interpretation. It appears at least three different people had a similar view, as I did not flag this comment.
      - wilg 7y ago
        It's not a non-sequitur, the commenter said they didn't think COVID-19 deaths, mass shooting deaths, and 9/11 deaths should be reported on prominently. This seems like an astonishing statement, hence the question!
jshevek 7y ago
Every time they post total numbers for the US, I divide by 3.3e8 and marvel at how small the numbers actually are (so far).
el_benhameen 7y ago
Covid-19 is now the leading daily cause of death in the US. It's novel, people care about it, and it's more immediately preventable through collective action than other leading causes of death (2nd and 3rd are heart disease and cancer). I don't see how media attention is unreasonable.
- jshevek 7y ago
  Breaking the data into "current daily" is the most extreme way of framing the data, given that we are currently suffering a rush of deaths due to the delayed effect of accelerated infection rates that occurred before the shutdown. (Many of the individual infections occurred after, but the critical mass of asymptomatic carriers occured before, in NY and other hotspots.)
- clairity 7y ago
  as of this morning, using LA Times numbers: 23K infections / 40M people in CA = 0.058% infection rate 682 deaths / 40M = 0.0017% death rate yet neither of those percentages are listed. both rates have crested, yet there's no chart or graph emphasizing that. no curve showing high and low expectations of either rate modeled into the future. most of the deaths have one or more co-morbidities, which means that a harsh flu or bacterial pneumonia would likely be roughly as deadly to them. no indications of that either. this kind of news could actually help people grasp the real risks rather than simply inducing anxiety and panic. flu pandemics are preventable via the same collective measures, potentially saving 40K lives a year in the US, yet we don't get hysterical about collective action every winter. media attention being understandable is different from it being reasonable.
xenocyon 7y ago
> 98-99% of non-covid deaths that are just as tragic and heartbreaking I think this belies a lack of understanding of COVID's growth curve. Early numbers were low compared to other diseases, but the exponential nature of the spread means that without the drastic measures we are taking (which some call excessively fearful) COVID could enact a massive death toll. Even with all the measures we are taking, COVID has already overtaken all other causes of death in the USA: https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-leading-cause-of-death.html https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-leading-cause-of-dea...

wilg 7y ago

so your belief is that information about deaths from a current pandemic or terrorist attack is not newsworthy? what do you think news is?

jshevek 7y ago
>so your belief is that information about deaths from a current pandemic or terrorist attack is not newsworthy? You misrepresent the parent comment. In no way did they imply that information about deaths is not newsworthy. We have more choices here than two extremes.
- wilg 7y ago
  I actually was asking a question of the parent commenter.
  - jshevek 7y ago
    You phrased your response in the form of a question, but in general that format doesn't preclude a commentator from misrepresenting another's views. Your comment was of the form: >"so [statement A]? [question predicated on statement A]?" In this case, statement A was a non-sequitur derived from an uncharitable interpretation. It appears at least three different people had a similar view, as I did not flag this comment.
    - wilg 7y ago
      It's not a non-sequitur, the commenter said they didn't think COVID-19 deaths, mass shooting deaths, and 9/11 deaths should be reported on prominently. This seems like an astonishing statement, hence the question!

jshevek 7y ago

Every time they post total numbers for the US, I divide by 3.3e8 and marvel at how small the numbers actually are (so far).

el_benhameen 7y ago

Covid-19 is now the leading daily cause of death in the US. It's novel, people care about it, and it's more immediately preventable through collective action than other leading causes of death (2nd and 3rd are heart disease and cancer). I don't see how media attention is unreasonable.

jshevek 7y ago
Breaking the data into "current daily" is the most extreme way of framing the data, given that we are currently suffering a rush of deaths due to the delayed effect of accelerated infection rates that occurred before the shutdown. (Many of the individual infections occurred after, but the critical mass of asymptomatic carriers occured before, in NY and other hotspots.)
clairity 7y ago
as of this morning, using LA Times numbers: 23K infections / 40M people in CA = 0.058% infection rate 682 deaths / 40M = 0.0017% death rate yet neither of those percentages are listed. both rates have crested, yet there's no chart or graph emphasizing that. no curve showing high and low expectations of either rate modeled into the future. most of the deaths have one or more co-morbidities, which means that a harsh flu or bacterial pneumonia would likely be roughly as deadly to them. no indications of that either. this kind of news could actually help people grasp the real risks rather than simply inducing anxiety and panic. flu pandemics are preventable via the same collective measures, potentially saving 40K lives a year in the US, yet we don't get hysterical about collective action every winter. media attention being understandable is different from it being reasonable.

xenocyon 7y ago

> 98-99% of non-covid deaths that are just as tragic and heartbreaking I think this belies a lack of understanding of COVID's growth curve. Early numbers were low compared to other diseases, but the exponential nature of the spread means that without the drastic measures we are taking (which some call excessively fearful) COVID could enact a massive death toll. Even with all the measures we are taking, COVID has already overtaken all other causes of death in the USA: https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-leading-cause-of-death.html https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-leading-cause-of-dea...