The problem with fake news is that sometimes a story is partially true, but the author is so intent on getting you to believe what they are saying that they intentionally leave out context or mislead with statistics that aren’t really being used correctly to try and drive home a point.
This morning I found this article, take a moment and peruse it:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/child-covid-19-hospitalizations-new-high-august-2021-n1277119
They actually start out pretty good. They say the hospital in Memphis is admitting “2-3” kids a day who test positive for Covid but most came in for other reasons (broken bones etc). So that means the kids were either asymptomatic or at best had symptoms so mild that no one suspected they had Covid. But then they lose us.
They then say he’s seeing 28 children a day. They also say he’s seeing them – not that they are admitting 28 children a day. And they don’t say why. It’s implied that they are there because of Covid but they don’t say. Then they pull out the “some” word. Some of them ending up in the ICU. They don’t say why they are in the ICU. But again, leaving it vague makes you believe it’s because of Covid. And it may be – but if it was – why wouldn’t you just say it? Unless you were trying to make this sounds worse than what it might actually be.
They somewhat come back to admitting not everything is Covid related. If you click on the link they provide about rising hospitalizations that article notes that kids are admitted to the hospital on a daily basis for a number of reasons not related to Covid. Since most kids are on summer break wouldn’t you expect more of them to go out and play and get hurt? Break an arm? Sprain a wrist? Of course. They also get on the road with their parents for vacation in the summer – so more end up in car wrecks and such.
The paragraph the authors get to where they note that childhood Covid cases rose from a low of 8,400 to 93,800 seems a bit fishy to me. Most all kids didn’t go back to school until after the first week of August. What happened to have that kind of effect? Delta did that? Maybe. I don’t know – I just know that’s a lot and doesn’t make sense to me.
Finally, let’s skip down to where the article addresses Florida. Again, they start with noting that Florida has an “average” of 188 children a day in the hospital. But then he talks about a hospital in Miami that has had 86 patients in August. What does that mean? 86 being treated for Covid? 86 that have come in and out? Again they don’t say. They just throw the numbers at you.
And how about that 188 average per day? A quick google searched netted me the information that there are 216 hospitals in the state of Florida. So that’s less than 1 kid per day, “on average.” Notice also in the entire article they don’t talk about anyone dying – and it is a terrible tragedy when a child dies from anything – but Covid isn’t going to come close to breaking the top ten reasons why children die in this country any time soon.
So let me finish by making one thing clear – you don’t want Covid, you don’t want your kid to get Covid, and it sucks if your kid does get Covid. But I find this article misleading and intentionally vague – and it didn’t have to be that way.
“House Impeaches Trump”! Half true; they did. False part; nothing came of it. Sounds like this doc likes to follow the same format!
The sad part is so many readers don’t bother to dive a bit deeper. It used to be a good investigative reporter would do this digging for us but not so much anymore – sad on their part. What’s that old saying, “you want something done right, do it yourself”!
Thanks for digging for us.
“Bogey Bill” nailed it. Can’t top perfection.