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New Covid wave has begun and masks should be worn again, scientists warn
(www.independent.co.uk)
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this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
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To answer your question, while you didn't say it outright, your response makes a likely inference to be that you believe COVID reporting was overblown to generate revenue.
That is the far-right taking point they are most likely referring to.
The number of hospitalizations and deaths is a statistic that was tracked and the far-right lead a campaign to discredit those statistics. Later, the far-right lead a campaign to say that vaccination should have resulted in full immunity, which it was never reported to do, in an effort to discredit scientists and make their followers feel validated in their decision to not vaccinate.
I don’t believe that reporting about the pandemic was overblown at the time that the pandemic was a public health crisis, actually I believe it was underreported, quite significantly.
However, I believe that the combination of the huge uncertainty, people desperately trying to keep up to date, people being off work or working from home, the huge amount of conversation around COVID news stories, etc. that the news websites got an unprecedented amount of traffic, clicks and revenue, and since that has tapered off, they’re basically like an addict desperate for a fix. They’ll present any minor COVID news, no matter how inconsequential, as a far bigger issue than it really is.
I don’t really believe that COVID will make a resurgence, but if it does, I’ll be there encouraging people to wear a mask. But I’m not gonna freak out and declare a state of emergency because a researcher tweeted some toilet thought.