Minnesota's leadership decided to use the model put forth by the University of Minnesota, which projected 1000 deaths per day by mid-July. Our worst day was 35 deaths and the cumulative total is 1882.

https://www.startribune.com/360-deaths-or-22-000-why-minnesota-s-covid-19-models-are-so-different/568966211/

Not reporting it as impossible = reporting it as likely. people dont write news reports on things that can not happen in reality too often.

you're right that only an idiot would fall for it, and over 50% of the country are idiots.

I think we really have to distinguish between scientific studies and how the media (and parts of politics) communicated those studies. The problem isnt the fact that epidemiologists calculated worst-case scenarios which fell outside the band of realistic scenarios (because it implicitly assumed people would NOT self-isolate), the problem is that those unrealistic worst-case scenarios were taken out of context by a media looking for sensational stories.

Even more despicable is that the political class in most countries thought the population would be too stupid to "get it", while fearmongering with overblown alarmism would actually cause them to "do the right thing" and thus be a net positive. This kind of patronizing and dishonest messaging was, of course, noticed by those parts of the population who are wary of the media and the political mainstream (usually the government, except in the US) anyway, and reinforced existing divisions. That's how the public opinion on covid was able to fall along the usual partisan lines.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Sep 3 2020 12:55pm

Okay bro. It's not enough that they report this as "the worst case scenario where nobody does anything and the virus reaches 100% infection". They need big flashing lights saying "THIS CANNOT HAPPEN"

I haven't seen a story where the worst case scenarios were taken out of context. By contrast, I saw dozens of articles where they specifically spelled out the worst, medium, and best cases.

Without a specific example we can't really do much except take swings at an ambiguous "they".

You're being far too cavalier with their wording. they'll weave in phrases like "if no action is taken" into a paragraph full of governors orders and white house inaction. it's far from clear that they mean no action all the way down to individuals.

and in any case we're talking of the context of articles that panicked idiots read too much into and how the stats they referenced are a far cry from reality, so both the fact that people are idiots and how realistic the stats were to begin with are valid context here.

https://www.cato.org/blog/how-one-model-simulated-22-million-us-deaths-covid-19

this study was referenced constantly (81% infection rate, 2.2 million dead in the US). it was used because it was scary. and later used by Trump to act as if he'd saved 2 million people somehow, once models showing closer to 200-300k dead by end of year. both to fool idiots, both effective.

Flash info: 70% of new coronavirus cases are emerging in "red states".

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/09/02/coronavirus-deaths-police-officers-2020/

Covid has killed more cops this year than all other causes combined.

Maybe they should start shooting white dudes without masks instead of black guys then.

Maybe they should leave BIPOC people alone since they're the most likely to be sick?