These days, the surest way to inflame the media is to ask commonsense questions about the coronavirus, and our response to it.
That’s exactly what Fox star Lisa Boothe did in a recent opinion piece. Her question: how deadly is the coronavirus?
Attacking the questioner
It seems like there are two reactions to the pandemic – sheer panic, or ignorant denial.
Clearly, the coronavirus is a horrible virus that is killing thousands of Americans. It’s not a hoax, or a sham.
But we don’t know much about the virus – including just how deadly it is, or how widespread.
This information is crucial to know – without it, we’ll have no idea how long the crisis will last, or how maybe asymptomatic people are walking about, spreading the virus. And without it, we can’t make informed decisions about how to preserve the economy.
That’s exactly what Boothe asked:
“How deadly is the coronavirus?” Boothe wrote in her article for the Hill. “It is a simple but vital question that we don’t know the answer to right now. With American lives and livelihoods on the line, we need a science-based baseline for making public policy decisions. Hopefully those answers come sooner than later as the White House looks to do random sampling, something I recently reported.”
It’s a valid question. And it has the effect of slowing down the epidemic.
If asymptomatic carriers are a “thing” they won’t be found without randomized testing. So why is it a bad thing to ask for it?
The answer is that the media is intently focused on politics, not actually controlling the virus.
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