Heather Mac Donald explains the media hysteria over coronavirus in Spectator USA. She writes (abridged):
The coronavirus doomsayers could not even wait until the fall for the apocalyptic announcements of the dreaded second wave.
Because the red states recklessly loosened their lockdowns, we are now told, the US is seeing a dangerous spike in coronavirus cases.
The New York Times put three reporters on a full-page article on Texas, published June 25 under the headline ‘AS NEW CASES SOAR, THE GOVERNOR FACES FALLOUT FROM A RUSH TO REOPEN.’
The story never mentioned coronavirus deaths.
Texas’s daily death count has bounced around since early May without a sharp rise — a high of 63 new deaths on May 21, 42 on June 24.
Arizona, another state facing media contempt, finally beat its earlier high of 67 deaths on May 8 with 79 deaths on June 24. Between those two dates, however, the curve was steady.
The Arizona mortalities are concentrated on Indian reservations and to a lesser extent around the Mexican border.
In May, Georgia was the main target of expert contempt for its allegedly premature reopening. Since then, the media have gone silent, due to the state’s truly discouraging downward daily death toll from a high of 119 on April 7, long before the reopenings, to 10 on June 24.
There are no crises in hospital capacity anywhere in the country.
Nursing homes, meat-packing plants, and prisons remain the main sources of new infections.
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