Fomenting Coronavirus Hysteria

The story comes to us from Great Britain. (via Zero Hedge) (via Maggie's Farm) An Oxford University professor is warning his people that they are being manipulated by the press. The British press has been ginning up hysteria about the coronavirus and has traumatized the British public.

One notes, with some chagrin, that the practice is not limited to the British press. Hasn’t the American media, with precious few exceptions fomented hysteria, about climate change and race relations? We are in the process of shutting down industry and suffering blackouts because the Democratic Party rode the hysteria to power and enacted stupid policies.

And now, at a time when we need our educational system to ramp up instruction in STEM subjects, the better prepare children for the future and the better to prepare them to compete with their peers in Asia, we have decided to spend more and more time teaching children how not to be racists. This counterproductive brainwashing will destroy minds. It will dumb down curricula.

As for the coronavirus hysteria in Great Britain, Oxford Professor Carl Heneghan has this to say:

Even though BoJo's system of localized COVID-19 measures seems to be working, the unrelenting hysteria peddled by the British press has left millions of Britons traumatized.

Now, Carl Heneghan, a professor of Evidence-based medicine at Oxford University, is calling for the government to intervene and "proactively reassure" his young students that the coronavirus won't kill them if they contract it.

He said exaggerated fears of the virus have led to "people going about their daily lives misunderstanding and overestimating their risk," something with which many Americans can probably empathize.

And as parts of north Manchester remain on 'partial lockdown', the professor said introducing local lockdowns could do more harm than good by forcing people into their homes, potentially infecting other vulnerable people who live with them, especially as the temperature drops.

We must also be cautious about trusting statistics about coronavirus deaths. Remember the old adage: There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.

Professor Heneghan's work has led to a lowering of the official death toll after he revealed COVID-19 deaths were being counted even if someone had subsequently died of other causes.

As we learn more about the virus, the pandemic could end up no worse than a bad flu season, the professor said, with a touch of hyperbole.

The UK's large death toll may hint at a larger number of cases left undiscovered, some have argued. Others have blamed failures in protecting the vulnerable populations living in care homes.

Heneghan's work 'reframing' how COVID-19 deaths are counted could eventually lead to the world seeing far fewer deaths than were actually reported (while many still went uncounted). But as we've come to understand how to treat COVID-19 more effectively, society hasn't recalibrated its fear of the virus.

Unfortunately, our mainstream media, like its British cousin, has gotten into the propaganda business. It is hard at work advancing a political agenda by slanting news and ginning up the hysteria.