This swine flu comparison is an ignorant canard. I will be glad when I can downvote chaff comments like this.

In the US the press is not part of the state.

Also the swine flu was much less of a problem for the US: the CDC reported less than 13,000 deaths in the US over a one year period vs stats today of over 34,000 for COVID-19 in just a few months — despite the extra precautions taken.

Slightly off-topic, but if you consider that 90% of "mainstream" media is owned by 6 huge corporations, which are interested in maintaining crony capitalism (of which the state is a central player) - then it would not be completely outlandish to think that the press is kinda part of state (conceptually speaking)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownersh...

it's the difference between explicit and invisible force. people in favour of capitalism (in all its forms) consider the invisible forces "the way the world works".

Eh, fair point that the epidemics were different scales, when I first saw that comparison they were still fairly close in terms of impact to the States.

Still, it seems to me that the Trump administration originally clearly wanted to go for a 'herd immunity' strategy and changed it due to political rather than practical considerations. I'm quite sure that if it had the relationship with the fifth estate that, say, the Biden campaign enjoys, there would have been very little political fallout as a result. The press has managed the truth far more aggressively for other administrations.