The Pandemic News is Bad Enough Without Lying About the Numbers
Two recent “accicental” cases of miscounting highlight why people don’t trust the media or government
The Texas Tribune erroneously reported 5800 children were hospitalized in the state the first week of August. It turns out this number was since the start of the pandemic. That’s not a small error. Yesterday, August 12, the paper issued an unapologetic emendation, “Correction, August 12, 2021: An earlier version of this story overstated the number of children who have been hospitalized in Texas recently with COVID-19. The story said over 5,800 children had been hospitalized during a seven-day period in August, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That number correctly referred to children hospitalized with COVID-19 since the pandemic began. In actuality, 783 children were admitted to Texas hospitals with COVID-19 between July 1 and August 9 of this year”.
Jennifer “pro-voting” Rubin, an “MSNBC contributor and writer for the Washington Post, then tweeted the erroneous report in pious disgust, “unconscionable: Over 5,800 children in Texas were newly hospitalized with COVID-19 in the seven-day period ending on Aug. 8, a 37% increase from a week prior. where is the pro-life movement ?? it’s now a death cult”. 2.2 thousand followers retweeted it. A quick review of her tweets did not show an…
