Analysis: A few words about Covid-19 make a very big difference
But words matter as much as ever in this time of a deadly pandemic and alternative facts.
Things that are just plain wrong take on lives of their own. A twice-edited video of a government official created a falsehood.
“The overwhelming number of deaths, over 75%, occurred in people who had at least four comorbidities, so really these were people who were unwell to begin with.”
That’s not the whole story. Walensky did say those words. But she was talking about a very specific set of Covid-19 deaths, among vaccinated people tracked in a study.
Walensky was talking about how it was encouraging that the vast majority of vaccinated people were safe from death by Covid-19.
As shared on Twitter by the conservative radio and TV host Clay Travis, the video gave a very different, and wrong, impression.
Travis added his own false context: “The CDC director just said over 75% of ‘Covid deaths’ occurred in people with at least four comorbidities. Since Biden can’t shut down Covid, suddenly all this data is getting shared publicly.”
Still there. The tweet is still online, by the way, although it includes a label by Twitter that says, “This media is presented out of context.” The video clip has more than 4 million views.
Dale, along with other fact checkers, tracked the video back to “Good Morning America,” which had posted a longer but still edited clip. News programs often trim interviews for time, but in this case “GMA” trimmed its own important context.
New direction. The editing of Walensky wasn’t the only example of a context-free headline in recent days.
They seemed, out of context, to be a sharp departure from the “stop the spread” mantra Americans have been asked to practice for the past two years.
Still need to take precautions. As the Omicron variant of the coronavirus tears through the country, Woodcock’s admission before lawmakers caused some whiplash — even if anyone who has been paying close attention has understood that Covid-19 measures are meant to slow the virus rather than eradicate it.
That important context was in the next words out of Woodcock’s mouth: “What we need to do is make sure the hospitals can still function.”
More important, he said it can create a national sense of c’est la vie when focus is what’s needed.
“If (Americans) think that it’s an inevitability, that most people are going to get it, then in some respects it sort of destroys the incentive to do what you can to protect yourself,” El-Sayed said. “It was stunning and also somewhat perplexing as a means of science communication.”
Confusion about when to change tactics as the virus changes has been a main storyline of Covid-19. The government has often seemed slow to move.
Finding vs. getting Covid-19. El-Sayed was more approving of the words used by Dr. Anthony Fauci, who also appeared on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.
“Omicron, with its extraordinary, unprecedented degree of efficiency of transmissibility, will ultimately find just about everybody,” said Fauci, President Joe Biden’s top medical adviser.
“What Dr. Woodcock was referring to when she said most of us will ultimately get Omicron is not that most of us were ultimately going to get sick with Omicron,” Fauci said.
The bottom line from all the government officials is that people should get vaccinated and boosted.
There’s a “dichotomy between people who get Omicron who get vaccinated and boosted (and) how well they are protected against hospitalization and death,” Fauci said.
Since January 2021:
Of those numbers, only nine had been vaccinated.
Zero had been vaccinated and boosted.
Other headlines. Here are some more Covid-19 developments worth reading.
Booster transparency: Former President Donald Trump, who did not immediately share his vaccination status as President, and who was booed by some Republicans after saying that he had received a booster, wants others in his party to be more open about their status.
“While I was surprised that my test results came back positive, I’m thankful to the Lord above that I’ve been vaccinated, I’ve been boosted, and that I have an incredible support system, especially my loving family,” Justice said in a statement.
“That being said, I feel extremely unwell at this point.”
