If you would have actually read those articles, you would see that the WaPo opinion piece does not actually downplay the coronavirus threat at all; it discusses the psychology of social panic. The NYT piece discusses how fear of coronavirus spread faster than the virus itself without any comment on the seriousness of the disease.

The CNBC article does compare the flu to the coronavirus and does note the flu has already killed more across the US on an absolute basis, but also notes that the coronavirus is significantly deadlier than the flu on a relative basis. Lenny Bernstein, the opinionist behind the second WaPo opinion piece you linked, apologized for his cavalier dismissal of the coronavirus in a followup opinion piece.

To date, only one person in the entire Fox News organization has apologized for getting it wrong on coronavirus. Every single other talking head has doubled down on downplaying coranavirus, and Fox and Friends is still implying that it's all just a second impeachment effort.

I'm sure you read all the articles in 5 minutes but either way the mental gymnastics you are going through to get around the headlines reading "How our brains make coronavirus seem scarier than it is" etc is truly impressive.

> The CNBC article does compare the flu to the coronavirus and does note the flu has already killed more across the US on an absolute basis, but also notes that the coronavirus is significantly deadlier than the flu on a relative basis.

The flu has already killed 10,000 across US as world frets over coronavirus

The flu remains a higher threat to U.S. public health than the new coronavirus.

This very clearly downplaying. One example was asked for, at least one was provided. Now we have examples of the downplaying being downplayed, because the "right guys" did it.

It's worth pointing out that Trump gave this order the day after or during the impeachment trial when it was risky for him to do so.

edit: None of this matters though because orange man bad.

Wait, wasn't your "but orange man bad" classic twitter response good enough? Why'd you edit it?

"When it was risky for him to do so."

Trump just got a get out of jail free card and absolute impunity and immunity to do anything he wanted. Since he's fired a number of people in the most brazen display of corruption in US history. Risky? There was zero risk.

Yes, orange man is bad. He's historically bad. He is a thin-skinned grifter who is positively the worst possible person to be in this position.

Oh but look he did an easy, lazy partial, regional restriction that accomplished positively nothing. What a savior.

So you don't think travel from China should have been shutdown until later?

What travel ban ? 400k people traveled from China after the ban. Trump said as of 2 weeks back that everything will be open by Easter. Everyday he downplays the virus and peddle misinformation. How anyone can define a completely unhinged and unethical person, whose direct actions is resulting in thousands of deaths is beyond me

We have already seen 13k deaths in 2 weeks, with unprecedented lockdowns. According to president genius we should have been at zero cases and shouldn't be shutting down the economy. If we treated this like a regular flu, I won't be surprised if we saw numbers at the high end of the projection. And lol, 48 states ? He won barely by 70k votes and lost by what 3mn in 2016 against the most hated candidate, with Russian help, and with FBI meddling 7 days before the election. Look how we lost what 400 seats in 2018. If indeed America elects this incompetent and malicious imbecile, who trades American lives based on which states have sucked up to him, thinks his ratings are more important than 1000s of people dying, then we truly are lost. But I will not be moving to Canada, but fighting everyday to keep our democracy which is threatened everyday by this man in office

"How far are we going to be under projected death counts for Covid? A factor of 1000?"

What do you think the projection was?

The US has tragically seen 12,242 deaths (which is an undercount, but it's the authoritative number right now). There are over a thousand deaths a day adding onto that.

Did someone predict 12 million deaths? No, they didn't.

The absolute worst-case projection was 2 million deaths if there were zero reduction steps taken. Maybe you haven't noticed, but society is basically shut down. The spread has dramatically slowed. With extreme social distancing the US is on target for 100,000-200,000 deaths. This is a good thing relative to much more dire outcomes possible. Note that this happened at the state level with zero federal leadership. Quite contrary, with constant federal pushback.

Not sure where your "factor of 1000" nonsense comes from. I assume from the echo chambers where you're fed your pablum.

I'm ideologically opposed to political conservativism, but I sympathize with you. Regarding ideological bias, CNN is worse than Fox, but in left leaning communities Fox is demonized while CNN gets a pass. Hivemind mentalities are frustrating regardless of which group engages in it.

> Regarding ideological bias, CNN is worse than Fox,

No, it's not, though it's pretty bad.

> in left leaning communities Fox is demonized while CNN gets a pass.

No, CNN’s (and most of the institutional media that isn't hard right) center-right pro-corporate bias is nearly as frequently pointed to by left-leaning folks as Fox’s hard-right bias.

You may be confusing the pro-corporate center-right wing of the Democratic Party with the left, though, which would make this statement understandable.

CNN'S pro-corporate bias barely scratches the surface of CNN's hostility to journalistic integrity.