#New york times growing up skipper full

That needs to continue to be the overriding theme at this point because that’s what the numbers say. The vaccines remain the best way to protect yourselves from this virus. 004% of those fully vaccinated had to be hospitalized. 001% of those fully vaccinated have experienced a fatal breakthrough case. Want an example of how it’s done? Check out this clip from CNN’s Jake Tapper, who used facts and numbers to say, “Less than. The biggest problem we have is unvaccinated people getting and spreading the virus.” It has been hyperbolic and frankly irresponsible in a way that hardens vaccine hesitancy. One Biden official told Darcy, “The media’s coverage doesn’t match the moment.

#New york times growing up skipper full

Again, that’s the context that needs to be added to tell the full story.ĬNN’s Oliver Darcy reports that the Biden administration is reaching out to news organizations to make sure to include context in their reporting about COVID-19. Then again, hospitalizations alone do not tell the story either because hospitalizations are mostly made up of unvaccinated patients. So what should the media be concerned about when it comes to COVID-19? Stelter suggests it should be hospitalizations and not cases. But the numbers show that severe illness and hospitalization are extremely rare among the vaccinated. No one ever claimed the vaccines made you 100% immune - and perhaps health officials and the media should have emphasized that when vaccines were rolled out. That doesn’t mean vaccinated people still can’t get COVID-19. The bottom line, based on the numbers, is the vaccines are working. (The Times followed up with a more clear tweet.)

The New York Times tweeted that an internal CDC report claimed, “The Delta variant is as contagious as chickenpox and may be spread by vaccinated people as easily as the unvaccinated.” But Ben Wakana of the White House COVID-19 response team retweeted, “VACCINATED PEOPLE DO NOT TRANSMIT THE VIRUS AT THE SAME RATE AS UNVACCINATED PEOPLE AND IF YOU FAIL TO INCLUDE THAT CONTEXT YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG.” And the reports that vaccinated people transmit the virus as easily as unvaccinated people is misleading because vaccinated people are far less likely to get COVID-19 to begin with. We saw several media outlets cover a story in Barnstable County, Massachusetts - where Cape Cod is - that showed a high percentage of positive COVID-19 cases were people who had been vaccinated.įor example, that county in Massachusetts with the high percentage of breakthrough cases? Not one death among the vaccinated, and less than a handful of hospitalizations. We’ve seen news outlets suggest that vaccinated people can transmit the virus as easily as unvaccinated people. We’ve seen news organizations play up the number of new cases. Sloppy news coverage makes a bad situation worse.” On CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” anchor Brian Stelter said, “The problem starts with the CDC and its absolute failure to communicate clearly and effectively. The media, perhaps even unintentionally, often isn’t telling the full story in the fight against COVID-19, and this is leading to confusion and panic.

Just when you thought we had turned the corner and we all came out of our cocoons ready to return to something close to normalcy, we see these numbers and hear these warnings, and you assume that we’re going backward.īut these horror stories and numbers are often presented without context, without nuance, without all the facts. Then we see scary numbers again - the number of new COVID-19 cases, people being hospitalized, people dying, breakthrough cases of those testing positive for the coronavirus after having been vaccinated. We hear a new frightening phrase: delta variant. That recommendation goes for most of the country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told those of us in COVID-19 hot spots to start wearing masks indoors again, even if we have been vaccinated. And let’s really try to figure out what’s going on.