For a while now I have been hearing it said that Americans are “in a panic” over the coronavirus outbreak in the US, and that mainstream media outlets are “feeding the fear”. This is an odd conclusion to come to and something worth noting, because the truth is mostly the opposite. For the past couple of months the WHO, the CDC and even Donald Trump have been dismissing Covid 19 as nothing much to worry about. The WHO actually still refuses to call it a pandemic even though the virus meets all of their own criteria.
Until recently the mainstream media was also been pumping out article after article on why Covid 19 is “no more dangerous than the flu”. With the official death rate at 2.3% to 3% (changing by the week), the virus already has higher mortality than the average flu. If we take into account the fact that multiple medical professionals within China have revealed (despite threats of punishment) that the Chinese government is hiding the true (and much higher) death and infection statistics, then the official data goes out the window. We can’t even trust the infection numbers from the CDC in the US, because they been refusing to test most people unless they have recently traveled to China.
Because of government lies we have to assume that the crisis is more pervasive than we know. And so far the average American is oblivious to it.
