Friday, April 10, 2020
Headlines for April 10, 2020
Worst, Most Misleading & Funniest Headlines for April 10, 2020
*Authorities remove almost a million N95 masks and other supplies from alleged hoarder
https://youtu.be/MmNqXaGuo2k (ABC News)
“Authorities remove close to one million N95 respirator masks, gloves, gowns and other medical supplies after a Brooklyn man was caught allegedly hoarding the equipment.”
Are you really an "alleged" hoarder if you have a million N95 masks?
*Trump and top aides repeatedly use briefings to describe efforts that have not panned out
Subhead: The Trump administration’s pronouncements and pledges have turned out, again and again, to be out of sync with what doctors, nurses and stricken families are reporting.
Inside headline: At White House coronavirus briefings, rescue efforts are extensive but often aspirational
A master class in avoiding the word “lying” (or “b.s.”). “Out of sync” with reality is apparently the latest euphemism for lying.
*Most of us are under stay-at-home orders. So why are 6 out of 10 still on the road?
This is utter nonsense. "Nationwide, traffic analytics firms say, daily traffic remains at about 60 percent of normal levels." "In California, where a stay-at-home order took effect March 19, daily trips statewide remain at 58 percent of normal levels." Baloney. The roads are deserted. Maybe people are taking a quick trip to the grocery store, or a nearby park, and maybe "trips" are at 58% (but even that I doubt), but the claim that "daily traffic" is at 60% is completely at odds with everything everyone I talk to is seeing. Here in the Bay Area you can drive on a freeway at "rush hour" at the speed limit; that was a fantasy a month ago. The same is true for local roads. Mass transit in the Bay Area is at less than 10% of normal.
*Coronavirus double whammy: unemployed and uninsured
So far the only article I’ve seen stating this obvious and rather important truth; no such coverage yet in the NYT, WaPo, or on various broadcast media. 17M people in the last three weeks now don’t have “health insurance they love”, if they ever had it. This is a major debunking of the Biden/Buttigieg/Klobuchar/ argument in favor of “Medicare for All who want it”, it should be a major theme of press coverage of the layoffs, but isn’t.
*Africa's leaders forced to confront healthcare systems they neglected for years
A, we could say the same about the US, and B, the situation of healthcare systems in the third world is primarily due to centuries of exploitation and underdevelopment by the West. Placing all the blame on Africa's leaders "neglect" is a real misdirection.
*Coronavirus death toll: Americans are almost certainly dying of covid-19 but being left out of the official count
Identical story in the NYT and elsewhere. "For a disease with common symptoms such as covid-19, they said, deaths with positive results almost certainly represent only a fraction of the total caused by the disease." “You’re never going to apply the test on everybody who is ill and everybody who dies. So without doubt — it’s a truism — the number of deaths are underestimated globally because you don’t apply the test.”
And yet we've been subjected to days and days of stories insinuating there was something sinister about the fact that the death toll in China may be higher than China has said.
*C.I.A. Hunts for Authentic Virus Totals in China, Dismissing Government Tallies
*Wuhan's death toll could be astronomically higher than the Chinese government has reported, some residents say
On Twitter, almost 60 percent of false claims about coronavirus remain online — without a warning label
This may or may not be accurate, but there isn’t a single example of the alleged false claims; we’re just left to take this on faith. Amazingly, though, there’s no mention of Russia or China in the article, only Trump & Bolsonaro.
Example:
Birx and Fauci reject Fox News-promoted theory that coronavirus deaths are inflated
Tucker Carlson and Brit Hume, saying that people who have coronavirus are actually dying from other causes but are being counted as COVID-19 deaths.
Example:
‘What do you have to lose?’: Inside Trump’s embrace of a risky drug against coronavirus
Another regular on Fox News, New York-based oncologist William Grace, has suddenly emerged as an influential voice in Trump’s orbit despite having no formal links to the government. Grace has appeared regularly on Ingraham’s show touting hydroxychloroquine.
Grace said in an interview that as he has tracked the pandemic as a self-described “interested physician,” he has become convinced that the “drugs are working, that fewer people are having to go to the respirators at places like Lenox Hill hospital.”
Grace is not a spokesman for the hospital or approved to speak about its use of hydroxychloroquine on patients. When Ingraham posted a tweet on March 20 about Grace’s comments regarding the hospital, Twitter deleted it for violating the platform’s policies, and the hospital said in a statement that “his views are his own and do not represent the hospital.”
'Maximum pressure' on Iran amid coronavirus could backfire for Trump
The headline should of course read "'Maximum pressure' on Iran amid coronavirus could kill tens of thousands of Iranians", since that's the real story, but that's not what it says. And the "backfire" portion? It mostly refers to the possibility that "hardliners" in Iran will be strengthened (supposedly bad for the U.S. and Trump). Plus it "could erode global trust in Washington".
US fighter jets intercept Russian aircraft near Alaska
"Near"=50 miles; territorial waters are 12 miles. There are actually U.S. islands (the Diomedes) which are about 12 miles from Russia! These planes may well have been closer to Russia than they were to the U.S.!
“COVID-19 or not, NORAD continues actively watching for threats and defending the homelands 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year,” NORAD Commander Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy said in the posts.
