AP instructs editors: Start downplaying case counts in our stories about COVID

[mystery-ak]

AP instructs editors: Start downplaying case counts in our stories about COVID
Allahpundit Jan 12, 2022 8:01 PM ET



If this is their way of trying to hide the bad COVID news from the public in order to help Democrats, they’re waaaaaay too late.

    [T]hese counts only reflect what is reported by health authorities. They do not include most people who test themselves at home, or are infected without even knowing about it. Holidays and weekends also lead to lags in reported cases…

    For that reason, The Associated Press has recently told its editors and reporters to avoid emphasizing case counts in stories about the disease. That means, for example, no more stories focused solely on a particular country or state setting a one-day record for number of cases, because that claim has become unreliable…

    Hospitalization and death rates are considered by some to be a more reliable picture of COVID-19′s current impact on society. Yet even the usefulness of those numbers has been called into question in recent days. In many cases, hospitalizations are incidental: there are people being admitted for other reasons and are surprised to find they test positive for COVID, said Tanya Lewis, senior editor for health and medicine at Scientific American.

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https://hotair.com/allahpundit/2022/01/12/ap-instructs-editors-start-downplaying-case-counts-in-our-stories-about-covid-n441163

[Bigun]

They moved on from cases to percentages weeks ago here.

[Free Vulcan]

What a rock and a hard place. Either hype the numbers to justify masks, lockdowns, and vaccines, or downplay them bcuz they make Joe Skeezy look bad.

[Smokin Joe]

They moved on from cases to percentages weeks ago here.

Always shift to percentages when the raw numbers aren't scary.

Rates are fun that way, too.

F'r instance, in North Dakota the rate of COVID cases per 100,000 in some counties exceeds the number of cases, wildly.

In Adams county, ND, (population 2,216) the rate (cases per 100,000) is 21,796, almost ten times the population. (And more impressive than the population.) According to the stats, about 1/4 of the people in the county have had COVID, and of those 483 cases, 472 recovered, two are active, and 9 are deceased. Now, that was just the county at the top of the list, chosen because it was at the top, and for no other reason, and demographics are not considered in these numbers.

But, overall, I am hoping people are coming to their senses and breaking free of the panic pOrn, and looking around.

If you had the bug, and lived, you should be good to go, provided you aren't suffering any lingering aftereffects.

[Kamaji]

Here we go with the political agitprop disguised as "journalism".

[Bigun]

Always shift to percentages when the raw numbers aren't scary.

Rates are fun that way, too.

F'r instance, in North Dakota the rate of COVID cases per 100,000 in some counties exceeds the number of cases, wildly.

In Adams county, ND, (population 2,216) the rate (cases per 100,000) is 21,796, almost ten times the population. (And more impressive than the population.) According to the stats, about 1/4 of the people in the county have had COVID, and of those 483 cases, 472 recovered, two are active, and 9 are deceased. Now, that was just the county at the top of the list, chosen because it was at the top, and for no other reason, and demographics are not considered in these numbers.

But, overall, I am hoping people are coming to their senses and breaking free of the panic pOrn, and looking around.

If you had the bug, and lived, you should be good to go, provided you aren't suffering any lingering aftereffects.

"Figures don't lie but liars sure can figure."  Come immediately to mind.

[Kamaji]

There are lies,

There are damned lies,

And then there are statistics.

[Fishrrman]

Here in western CT, I started keeping a spreadsheet of my own making with the first known case in the state on March 8, 2020.

I began recording:
STATE:
total number of cases (to date)
increase per day
total deaths
increase per day

COUNTY:
total number of cases (to date)
increase per day
total deaths
increase per day

TOWN
total number of cases (to date)
increase per day
increase per week

Back around last August, the county numbers were reported sporadically (at least at the source I was using) and by October they stopped.

My source for the town numbers dried up not long after, but suddenly "came back to life" a few weeks ago.

Since mid-December, the numbers have just gone crazy here.
Back around last March (was that the "delta" surge?) I was seeing weekly increases (in town) of about 250-270 for a short while. Then it dropped down again.

At the end of December, that number jumped up to over 700.
For the week ending January 7th, it was 1,540.

Last three days, 1,099.

Connecticut has a population of about 3.4 million.
It's already had 619,000 infections.
That's 18% or so of the entire population, and if the new infection holds, within a couple more months it could rise to 30%, maybe more...

At some point it looks like almost the entire population is going to come down with this...