Re:Coronavirus Mutants Are Spreading Fast
by healinpor on Saturday February 20, 2021 @11:53AM
(#26205579)
Tbf human beings do not assess risk well with or without the presence of media. Our psychology is not well equipped to handle it. That's not to say media doesn't make it worse.
Re:Coronavirus Mutants Are Spreading Fast
by simonh on Saturday February 20, 2021 @12:20PM
(#26205891)
Yes it’s true the media has an incentive to play up threats, but does that mean there are no threats, or that all the threats they report can be discounted?
Mutated virus strains that are dramatically more virulent and possibly more deadly are scary. This is the virus evolving to better target its host. There’s nothing irrational about being concerned by that.
It’s true fewer people are dying right now, but it’s still thousands of people per day in the US and still hundreds a day here in the UK. Those are not good numbers. I’d love to know how the relatives of those thousands of people who died today would react to you saying they were not at significant risk.
If some of the current vaccines offer reduced protection against some of the new strains that’s a big deal that people need to be informed about.
Go out and ask random people what they think about the pandemic, and it's common that they think that they are at risk of death even if the data from the CDC demonstrates that they aren't. Heck, there are smart people on HN who can't assess risk particularly well.
When the media is constantly drumming COVID into everyone's heads while glossing over the fact that far fewer people are dying now, at the expense of other news items and at the ignorance of other epidemics killing people, yes, that's fear porn.