![]() ![]() Is it rational, when as many people have died of COVID in a month as died of AIDS in its worst year (near 50,000 in 1995), to think of the novel coronavirus as a “regular respiratory virus”-and to think that the big and consequential disruptions to worry about are mask wearing and ventilation and not death and debilitation? Is it rational for Democrats, Republicans and much of the news media to press on toward what writer Tom Scocca calls a policy of “unlimited” COVID? This is a big and consequential loss, and those children are probably not among the many who are ready to “move on.” So is it rational? To be calling for the end of lifesaving mitigation efforts and saying they harm children when so many have been orphaned here and worldwide? have lost one or both parents because of COVID-roughly one in every 375 children. This past winter David Leonhardt, the writer of the Times's newsletter “The Morning,” asked Michael Barbaro, the host of the company's podcast “The Daily”: “If COVID is starting to look like a regular respiratory virus, is it rational for us to treat it like something completely different and to disrupt our lives in all these big and consequential ways”Ībout 200,000 children in the U.S. A return to normal would allow companies to reap profits, while some people work in relative safety from their homes (the target audience of many news organizations' advertisers) at the expense of more vulnerable people who must work or study in person. The media has helped to shape public opinion so business can return to the very circumstances that created this ongoing crisis. The effect has been the manufactured consent to normalize mass death and suffering-to subtly suggest to Americans that they want to move on. ![]() The Times wasn't alone several large mainstream publications, as well as politicians of both major political parties, have been beating a drum to get “back to normal” for months. But when the death toll reached nine times that number, the Times callously wrote, “900,000 Dead, but Many Americans Move On.” Deaths Near 100,000, an Incalculable Loss,” using its entire front page to print names of some of the deceased. In May 2020 the New York Times ran a sympathetic headline reading “U.S. This is an unfathomable number, yet in contrast to the beginning of the pandemic, the news media has often downplayed the one-million mark. ![]() has continued to have by far the most COVID infections and deaths per country: one million dead, with no end in sight. Despite being the wealthiest nation on the planet, the U.S. ![]()
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