9 ms·

The media really needs to slow their roll, a lot. Two people having breakthrough infections for any variant is not at all unlikely, and this is absolutely not e

The media really needs to slow their roll, a lot. Two people having breakthrough infections for any variant is not at all unlikely, and this is absolutely not evidence that Omicron is more likely to lead to breakthrough infections. In fact it would only be actually newsworthy if Omicron _didn’t_ break through. And the pointless emotional fact that they are doctors, as if any virus considers ones CV. And the excessive use of “probably” in this story. I get that COVID was a ~bane~ (I meant boon) for the news industry and that people scared shitless are more likely to click but this shit is getting borderline irresponsible.

abduhl 5y ago
I disagree that COVID was a bane for the news industry - I think it’s been a great boon to them. People locked down in their apartments with nothing else to do but refresh news sites and Twitter and have their chosen news network tell them how the other side is making it worse, all against the backdrop of an election? This is modern media’s wet dream and they’ve pounced on it.
- PraetorianGourd 5y ago
  Fuck I mixed up my banes and boons. In my defense I’m a tad drunk and ran out of cocaine
  - sushsjsuauahab 5y ago
    This isn't helping your credibility.
    - PraetorianGourd 5y ago
      You’d be shocked to learn how much you consider credible was discovered, discussed or announced under the influence of either alcohol or cocaine.. or both.
  - glitchc 5y ago
    That’s a definite bane.. er, boon.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
lupinglade 5y ago
Borderline? It's far beyond that by now.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  I know this is gonna sound extremely un-American, but nothing has made me despise free speech more than the past year. Media companies running blatantly false or libelous articles pushing the states agenda. Or touting hearsay spoken by some random twitter user as fact fanning flames of witch hunting for peoples jobs all based off of pure speculation and rumor. Our media companies either need to be reigned in, or just completely restructured in terms of what their first amendment rights are.
colechristensen 5y ago
Very few people have been talking about it responsibly throughout the course. It’s become a weird morality issue and anyone taking about it from that position is adding to the problem regardless of moral stance, and the morality isn’t even being done correctly focusing on the actual issues. I guess it’s just a symptom of the attention economy and the bad state of education and ability for independent thought everywhere.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- PraetorianGourd 5y ago
  Disease has always been viewed through a moral lens. Plague was from sin, aids was from sin. We have always judged the sick through a moral lens and only through hindsight do we see how terrible that was. And then we repeat the same mistake. I am confident that the people giving out so called “Herman Cain Awards” for COVID will be judged as harshly as we judge those who called HIV the gay plague.
  - brohoolio 5y ago
    It’s possible. My understanding though is that “Hermain Cain Awards” go out to folks who fall into several categories. They deny the virus exists/ is dangerous. They don’t take precautions, like masks or get vaccinated. The advocate against folks who get vaccinated calling them “sheep” or other names. On one hand, many of these folks have fallen victim to disinformation and one political party in America that’s trying to actively hurt them for some sort of gain. So yea maybe it’s not their fault. On the other hand, my friend got accosted trying to get his kiddo vaxxed by one of these folks. Not cool.
  - afavour 5y ago
    > I am confident that the people giving out so called “Herman Cain Awards” for COVID will be judged as harshly as we judge those who called HIV the gay plague. I’m not so sure. If there were a safe, free and widely available vaccine for HIV and gay men were going out of their way to shout about not taking it then I think the situation may have been comparable.
shusaku 5y ago
Reuters is just reporting an event. Nobody goes to the front page of Reuters to see what stories are important. It’s aggregators like… hacker news… that are fanning the flames.
- PraetorianGourd 5y ago
  Reuters used to represent a “just the facts” news wire. But now it just isn’t. Yes this is an event in the same way that someone relapsing in cancer is an event. It alone is pointless and does not a trend make.
  - bmarquez 5y ago
    > Reuters used to represent a "just the facts" news wire. After reading the article I'm still not seeing the problem. The sentences in the article are factual information, there is no obvious editorial bias like a CNN or Fox article, and there is nothing telling you how to feel (e.g. "You should be afraid" NYT title). Reuters still seems pretty good compared to what's available out there.
    - PraetorianGourd 5y ago
      Publishing the story is itself an editorial decision.
      - nathanaldensr 5y ago
        Are you asking for self-censorship of facts?
        trobertson 5y ago
        From the GP: > Two people having breakthrough infections for any variant is not at all unlikely The point is that this fact isn't newsworthy... unless Reuters is running an agenda. This article is blatant fearmongering.
poorjohnmacafee 5y ago
Both my parents, sister, and a slew of friends and co-workers have had "breakthrough infections" from covid, I'm not really sure (if you're not getting boosters) whether you even have protection from regular let alone Omicron at this point.
- jewelry 5y ago
  That only means you're in the place with a lot virus flowing around, nothing else. Vaccine stimulate your immune system to lower the chance to get infected, and even if infected much lower chance to get severely damaged.
  - ComputerGuru 5y ago
    I’m not sure your explanation is sound. Studies have shown doctors/nurses get sick (pre-Covid) at more or less the same rate as the rest of the population, despite increased exposure to circulating colds and flus. Explanations ranged from “they get vaccinated more” to “background exposure to very low payloads primes the immune system and keeps them healthier.”
    - gls2ro 5y ago
      I am thinking that maybe doctors/nurses have two factors that cancel out so it makes their infected numbers look like the rest of the population: - higher exposure but also - better, and stricter safety measures that are really followed
  - poorjohnmacafee 5y ago
    I hate to put it in these terms, but do you have credible peer reviewed literature on this claim? What you're saying is exactly what state media & state authorities started espousing after everyone realized the vaccine didn't offer the protection everyone had assumed and been promised. I'm wondering if there is any actual evidence for their claims or if it's just saving face and moving goal posts.
bserge 5y ago
Way too late. Things have been getting better, yet according to the media the world is literal Hell for decades. Nothing is factual reporting anymore, everything has to have some angle, the more negative emotions it triggers, the better. "News" is only negative, because reporting on postive stuff was how the commies did propaganda or something. Social Media just made it worse, now you have millions of people "reporting the news", the same way they learned from traditional media. Fuck it all.
zenplant 5y ago
As a counterpoint I wonder how many thousands of lives we could have/would have saved if we reported on delta with the same type of urgency. We don't have the facts yet, and every story I've seen underscores that point. But to just say "we don't know so let's ignore it entirely until we do" seems to minimize the deadliness of the past mutations we've seen.
- PraetorianGourd 5y ago
  It is just as irresponsible to say “we don’t have all the facts… but it could render vaccines useless and reinfect everyone and spread like measles and kill like small pox”. Ignoring it is irresponsible. Panicking is irresponsible. This isn’t a difficult or new concept! Each year the flu is a new “variant” and every single year it has the _potential_ to be 1918 all over again. But we don’t close borders and force quarantine until we have proof it isn’t 1918 bad. We study it, we prepare vaccines and we take reasonable precautions
  - zenplant 5y ago
    I think our top doctor here in bc said it wonderfully. We must anticipate and plan for the worst even as we hope for the best. It isn't asking for much after what we've been through to go a month with more caution. If we had a 1918 flu, and then another strain worse than that within 2 years, of course we might take some precautions when we find a 3rd strain overtaking the 2nd strain.

abduhl 5y ago

I disagree that COVID was a bane for the news industry - I think it’s been a great boon to them. People locked down in their apartments with nothing else to do but refresh news sites and Twitter and have their chosen news network tell them how the other side is making it worse, all against the backdrop of an election? This is modern media’s wet dream and they’ve pounced on it.

PraetorianGourd 5y ago
Fuck I mixed up my banes and boons. In my defense I’m a tad drunk and ran out of cocaine
- sushsjsuauahab 5y ago
  This isn't helping your credibility.
  - PraetorianGourd 5y ago
    You’d be shocked to learn how much you consider credible was discovered, discussed or announced under the influence of either alcohol or cocaine.. or both.
- glitchc 5y ago
  That’s a definite bane.. er, boon.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

lupinglade 5y ago

Borderline? It's far beyond that by now.

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
I know this is gonna sound extremely un-American, but nothing has made me despise free speech more than the past year. Media companies running blatantly false or libelous articles pushing the states agenda. Or touting hearsay spoken by some random twitter user as fact fanning flames of witch hunting for peoples jobs all based off of pure speculation and rumor. Our media companies either need to be reigned in, or just completely restructured in terms of what their first amendment rights are.

colechristensen 5y ago

Very few people have been talking about it responsibly throughout the course. It’s become a weird morality issue and anyone taking about it from that position is adding to the problem regardless of moral stance, and the morality isn’t even being done correctly focusing on the actual issues. I guess it’s just a symptom of the attention economy and the bad state of education and ability for independent thought everywhere.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
PraetorianGourd 5y ago
Disease has always been viewed through a moral lens. Plague was from sin, aids was from sin. We have always judged the sick through a moral lens and only through hindsight do we see how terrible that was. And then we repeat the same mistake. I am confident that the people giving out so called “Herman Cain Awards” for COVID will be judged as harshly as we judge those who called HIV the gay plague.
- brohoolio 5y ago
  It’s possible. My understanding though is that “Hermain Cain Awards” go out to folks who fall into several categories. They deny the virus exists/ is dangerous. They don’t take precautions, like masks or get vaccinated. The advocate against folks who get vaccinated calling them “sheep” or other names. On one hand, many of these folks have fallen victim to disinformation and one political party in America that’s trying to actively hurt them for some sort of gain. So yea maybe it’s not their fault. On the other hand, my friend got accosted trying to get his kiddo vaxxed by one of these folks. Not cool.
- afavour 5y ago
  > I am confident that the people giving out so called “Herman Cain Awards” for COVID will be judged as harshly as we judge those who called HIV the gay plague. I’m not so sure. If there were a safe, free and widely available vaccine for HIV and gay men were going out of their way to shout about not taking it then I think the situation may have been comparable.

shusaku 5y ago

Reuters is just reporting an event. Nobody goes to the front page of Reuters to see what stories are important. It’s aggregators like… hacker news… that are fanning the flames.

PraetorianGourd 5y ago
Reuters used to represent a “just the facts” news wire. But now it just isn’t. Yes this is an event in the same way that someone relapsing in cancer is an event. It alone is pointless and does not a trend make.
- bmarquez 5y ago
  > Reuters used to represent a "just the facts" news wire. After reading the article I'm still not seeing the problem. The sentences in the article are factual information, there is no obvious editorial bias like a CNN or Fox article, and there is nothing telling you how to feel (e.g. "You should be afraid" NYT title). Reuters still seems pretty good compared to what's available out there.
  - PraetorianGourd 5y ago
    Publishing the story is itself an editorial decision.
    - nathanaldensr 5y ago
      Are you asking for self-censorship of facts?
      - trobertson 5y ago
        From the GP: > Two people having breakthrough infections for any variant is not at all unlikely The point is that this fact isn't newsworthy... unless Reuters is running an agenda. This article is blatant fearmongering.

poorjohnmacafee 5y ago

Both my parents, sister, and a slew of friends and co-workers have had "breakthrough infections" from covid, I'm not really sure (if you're not getting boosters) whether you even have protection from regular let alone Omicron at this point.

jewelry 5y ago
That only means you're in the place with a lot virus flowing around, nothing else. Vaccine stimulate your immune system to lower the chance to get infected, and even if infected much lower chance to get severely damaged.
- ComputerGuru 5y ago
  I’m not sure your explanation is sound. Studies have shown doctors/nurses get sick (pre-Covid) at more or less the same rate as the rest of the population, despite increased exposure to circulating colds and flus. Explanations ranged from “they get vaccinated more” to “background exposure to very low payloads primes the immune system and keeps them healthier.”
  - gls2ro 5y ago
    I am thinking that maybe doctors/nurses have two factors that cancel out so it makes their infected numbers look like the rest of the population: - higher exposure but also - better, and stricter safety measures that are really followed
- poorjohnmacafee 5y ago
  I hate to put it in these terms, but do you have credible peer reviewed literature on this claim? What you're saying is exactly what state media & state authorities started espousing after everyone realized the vaccine didn't offer the protection everyone had assumed and been promised. I'm wondering if there is any actual evidence for their claims or if it's just saving face and moving goal posts.

bserge 5y ago

Way too late. Things have been getting better, yet according to the media the world is literal Hell for decades. Nothing is factual reporting anymore, everything has to have some angle, the more negative emotions it triggers, the better. "News" is only negative, because reporting on postive stuff was how the commies did propaganda or something. Social Media just made it worse, now you have millions of people "reporting the news", the same way they learned from traditional media. Fuck it all.

zenplant 5y ago

As a counterpoint I wonder how many thousands of lives we could have/would have saved if we reported on delta with the same type of urgency. We don't have the facts yet, and every story I've seen underscores that point. But to just say "we don't know so let's ignore it entirely until we do" seems to minimize the deadliness of the past mutations we've seen.

PraetorianGourd 5y ago
It is just as irresponsible to say “we don’t have all the facts… but it could render vaccines useless and reinfect everyone and spread like measles and kill like small pox”. Ignoring it is irresponsible. Panicking is irresponsible. This isn’t a difficult or new concept! Each year the flu is a new “variant” and every single year it has the _potential_ to be 1918 all over again. But we don’t close borders and force quarantine until we have proof it isn’t 1918 bad. We study it, we prepare vaccines and we take reasonable precautions
- zenplant 5y ago
  I think our top doctor here in bc said it wonderfully. We must anticipate and plan for the worst even as we hope for the best. It isn't asking for much after what we've been through to go a month with more caution. If we had a 1918 flu, and then another strain worse than that within 2 years, of course we might take some precautions when we find a 3rd strain overtaking the 2nd strain.