This past week has seen me following my usual routine. Awaken, coffee & breakfast, catch the morning news and work. After work was followed by walks, virtual gaming, work on my virtual Vanguard campaign and lots of Hermitcraft with the fam.
( Goodtimeswithscar; Grian; Mumbo Jumbo)
But I noticed one glaring difference. Whereas the local news had been starting with updates on local Covid19 cases, they now seem to be omitting the info entirely. I know, from some other sites, that the Dallas County numbers are still trending upwards, so I found this lack of information disconcerting.
Maybe they realized everyone is tired of hearing about our shared misery, or maybe because the country has been ordered to reopen, it was something a bit more... ignorant? sinister? idiotic? Not sure of the way to best describe the motivations. Balancing Public Health versus Economic Health is certainly a tricky balance, but I feel we have swung the door open too fast. I was reminded of reports at the beginning of our trials, comparing Covid19 to the Spanish Influenza outbreak of last Millennia, and quickly found this piece:
-- Excerpt from: Dayhoff: Government censorship made the 1918 Spanish flu even worse -- Carroll County Times, March 20, 2020According to [historian John] Barry, “Wilson created what was called the Committee for Public Information. The architect of that committee said, 'Truth and falsehood are arbitrary terms. The force of an idea lies in its inspirational value. It matters very little if it is true or false.'"
"In the United States, you had national public health leaders saying such things as ‘This is ordinary influenza by another name.’ At the local level the same kind of thing was occurring. With deadly consequences. ... No more so than in Philadelphia, which went ahead with a huge war bond parade in the fall of 1918 when the virus was at its most virulent. Newspapers killed stories quoting the medical community saying don’t do it.
Fake News anyone? Or is it just me that finds this parallels the thinking of our current administration?
But what really struck me, was on Saturday, a YouTube clip from NBC News popped up in our stream about Governor Coumo's press conference. (this video now seems to now have been edited to remove said intro). The video opened with pictures of different states and their case numbers and deaths. With the exception of California, all other states included the tagline "no new cases reported today"
Whoo Hoo! The crisis is over, we can all go out into the streets and celebrate with a mass parade and mosh pit at the end! Right?
And then the press conference started ... Governor Cuomo reporting numbers of new cases have dropped some, but still around 500 a day and then the bad news about the children. Most of my friends are not so gullible as to think our situation is close to being over. And from what I saw in the grocery store yesterday, 90% of my mask wearing neighbors appear to agree.
Time will tell if censoring the information helps the Covid19 monster more or America's economic health more. After all, it's been over 100 years since the Spanish Influenza, and information seems to be just coming to light; like maybe it should have been called the "Kansas Flu". An interesting history (found here) and makes me wonder (paraphrasing Santayana here) if those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it
