WhooHoo FluMongering: CJR just comes right out and says it

Razer g2s at riseup.net
Thu Feb 27 18:22:39 PST 2020



On 2/27/20 10:51 AM, John Young wrote:
> Downplaying the COVID-19 threat has become a formulaic cognitive
> trigger dismissal.
>
>
>


Can't prove or disprove a baseless-statement. Next you should ask me if
I've stopped beating my wife yet.


>
> Perhaps wise but there have been disasters in the past by such
> wise-ass downplaying: plague, VD, smallpox, polio, measles, mental
> illness, genocide, AIDS, opiods, suicide, environmental damage, sexual
> predation, et al.

You forgot Cholera. I'll get to that.

First, and I'm only going to respond to three idiocies. Two stated and
one I brought up.

Measles is hardly a global scourge of death. It DOES twend to kill
children in the nations we make war on and impoverish into child
starvation, because children deficient in Vitamin A do have a high
mortality rate. Or Yemen and a few other nations, for example, where
Polio and Cholera show up after we BOMB THEIR WATER SUPPLIES and
blockade... sanction, blow out of the air or water, anyone bringing
Chlorine b/c "Dual-Use".

Get the picture dude? WE ... OUR ACTIONS ... ARE THE DISEASE, AND THE
DISEASE-BRINGER.

Our society is diseased with the concept... the very NAZI-like fascistic
concept, that we bring help, not destruction, as we destroy.

>
> The worst are intolerant religion and war-making, this two-backed
> beast is widely blessed and boosted by profit-making adherents no
> matter the great harm the cause, both sensationalized to the maximum.
> Their leaders wear funny-looking garments and jewelry, are obsessed
> with rank, ceremony, public displays and above all fund-raising by
> scaring the shit out of people with endless murdering onslaughts
> supported by extorted tithes and taxes.
>
> No surprise that journalism sucks up to them, that's its purpose.


Journalism doesn't sux. News Reporting sux.

Don't conflate the two, dickwad. You know better.


>
> This befouling message is behind a paywall, privacy guaranteed by TOS.


No it isn't. I read the whole piece and I'm not a subscriber. If you
actually go to the article you'll have links to facts, too.

Here...

"How to name a coronavirus

As regular readers of this column know, we usually object to labels,
because their meanings are often in the eye of the beholder rather than
universal.

Exceptions should be made, though. The current epidemic sweeping China
and threatening the world should be called by its label.

Most news reports call it “the coronavirus,” “a coronavirus,” “new
coronavirus,” or “novel coronavirus.” To be accurate, though, it must be
“a coronavirus,” “a new coronavirus,” or “a novel coronavirus.” That’s
because this coronavirus is separate from other coronaviruses that have
caused their own epidemics or pandemics. Each gets a name, and each was
new (or novel) at some point.

One of them, SARS, appeared in November 2002, in Guangdong province in
southern China. (SARS stands for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.) The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Site says that 8,098 people
were infected, and 774 died before it was declared under control in July
2003. It spread to 24 countries.

Another “coronavirus” is MERS, which stands for Middle East Respiratory
Syndrome, first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012. The World Health
Organization says 2,494 cases were reported, with 858 deaths, in 27
countries.

The current “coronavirus” first appeared in Wuhan, China, probably
transmitted to a human by an animal, and has spread to many countries,
including the United States, causing quarantines, panic, a run on
facemasks, and discrimination against Chinese people.

After several weeks without a name of its own, the current coronavirus
finally got one: The virus is SARS-CoV-2, and the disease it causes is
called COVID-19, after coronavirus and its year of discovery. “COVID-19”
does not run as easily off the tongue as SARS or MERS but there is a
logic to its name.

As the director general of the WHO, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus,
said: “We had to find a name that did not refer to a geographical
location, an animal, an individual or group of people, and which is also
pronounceable and related to the disease. Having a name matters to
prevent the use of other names that can be inaccurate or stigmatizing.
It also gives us a standard format to use for any future coronavirus
outbreaks.” As Shakespeare did not say: what’s in a name can be important.

In getting a name without a geographic or animal identification,
COVID-19 can avoid some of the problems previous viruses have. This
year, for example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has
named several varieties of flu viruses, including an
A/Singapore/INFIMH-16-0019/2016 A(H3N2)-like virus, an A/Kansas/14/2017
(H3N2)-like virus, a B/Victoria virus, and a B/Yamagata virus. They get
shortened, to Singapore, Kansas, Victoria, and Yamagata, to make them
easier to say and understand. That stigmatizes the people in Singapore,
Kansas, Victoria, and Yamagata, who did not cause those flus. And of
course, there’s “swine flu,” “Asian flu,” “bird flu” and others.
Associating a disease with a place or an animal always risks
retaliation, and overreaction. It will be difficult enough to distance
COVID-19 from its Chinese source, especially as people shun Chinatowns
around the U.S. from an unfounded fear of COVID-19.

COVID-19 has already surpassed the death tolls of SARS and MERS, over
2,000 people as this is written, with little signs of abating. Still,
that pales in comparison with the CDC estimates of 26 million illnesses
from flu, resulting in 250,000 hospitalizations and 14,000 deaths from
flu in the United States alone.

And even the WHO director-general seemed frustrated that so much
attention was being paid to COVID-19. He began his Feb.11 briefing on
the coronavirus with a reminder: “Although the world is now focused on
coronavirus, we cannot and must not forget Ebola,” which has surged in
Africa and which has a much higher fatality rate than COVID-19.

So why is so much attention being paid to COVID-19? First, because it’s
new, and spreading. But as Max Fisher wrote in the New York Times,
COVID-19 “hits nearly every cognitive trigger we have.” Its novelty and
the uncertainty around it override the recognition that other diseases,
including flu, are far more endemic and dangerous. He likens the
reaction to that after a plane crash, when people shun flying even
though a crash is an anomaly and flying is overwhelmingly safe.

And social media spreads the rumors, fake cures, and other untruths that
we won’t link to, but include words like “genocide” and “Zionist
conspiracy.”

Journalists have the responsibility to put things in context. Cover
COVID-19 and its effects, be they economic, physical, or social. But
acknowledge its place in the pantheon of disease. Reporting as if it
were the end of the world is an epidemic of a different kind.


Merrill Perlman managed copy desks across the newsroom at the New York
Times, where she worked for twenty-five years. Follow her on Twitter at
@meperl."











>
>
>
>
>
>
> At 11:13 AM 2/27/2020, you wrote:
>> Content-Type: multipart/mixed;
>> boundary="wQo7VCexvkCLBNE0vSTK1iIzwarPt4zkk";
>>  protected-headers="v1"
>> From: Razer <g2s at riseup.net>
>> To: cypherpunks at lists.cpunks.org
>> Message-ID: <1edcd351-7569-8b13-777c-a9cfa9bcd81c at riseup.net>
>> Subject: WhooHoo FluMongering: CJR just comes right out and says it
>>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
>> Content-Language: en-US
>>
>>
>> "Why COVID-19 is not the problem" (but the sensationalized reporting and
>> ignorant reactionary humans sure are!)
>>
>> "So why is so much attention being paid to COVID-19? First, because
>> it’s
>> new, and spreading. But as Max Fisher wrote in the New York Times,
>> COVID-19 “hits nearly every cognitive trigger we have.” Its
>> novelty and
>> the uncertainty around it override the recognition that other diseases,
>> including flu, are far more endemic and dangerous.
>>
>> He likens the reaction to that after a plane crash, when people shun
>> flying even though a crash is an anomaly and flying is overwhelmingly
>> safe.
>>
>> And social media spreads the rumors, fake cures, and other untruths that
>> we won’t link to, but include words like “genocide” and “Zionist
>> conspiracy.”
>>
>> Journalists have the responsibility to put things in context. Cover
>> COVID-19 and its effects, be they economic, physical, or social. But
>> acknowledge its place in the pantheon of disease. Reporting as if it
>> were the end of the world is an epidemic of a different kind."
>>
>> Â https://www.cjr.org/language_corner/covid-19-coronavirus.php
>>
>>
>>
>
>




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