‘Repression’ Is Not Surveillance, but Using Surveillance to Protect Health
Arguing that “repression” is the reason Vietnam has reported only 288 Covid-19 cases (as of May 7) and no deaths from the disease, an article in Foreign Policy (5/12/20) charges: “Vietnam is a state that not only knows where you live but also knows when you go away—and your mobile phone number.”
The US government, of course, not only knows where you live—since you tell them that on the tax form you are required to file annually—it also collects a huge amount of data on your cell phone use, keeping “a record of most calls made in the US, including the telephone number of the phones making and receiving the call, and how long the call lasted” (ProPublica, 6/27/13). The difference between the US and Vietnamese governments is not how much they surveil their citizens—but whether they use the information they collect to protect their citizens’ health.
No, That Survey Did Not Say You Got Coronavirus by Staying Home
“‘The People Were at Home’: Cuomo Details Surprising Survey Results,” was how the New York Times (5/6/20) reported on a May 6 press briefing by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. CNBC (5/6/20) had: “Cuomo Says It’s ‘Shocking’ Most New Coronavirus Hospitalizations Are People Who Had Been Staying Home.”
CBS (5/7/20) went with: “66% of NY Coronavirus Hospitalizations Are People Who Stayed Home,” explaining: “About two-thirds of patients hospitalized with Covid-19 in New York became infected even though they said they’d been observing lockdown restrictions.”
But that’s not what the survey Cuomo presented actually found (FAIR.org, 5/9/20). The 66% figure referred to how many people were living at home—as opposed to a nursing home, a jail, etc.—before they were hospitalized. It did not say whether they were staying home. Another question asked about “transportation method in daily life,” which seemed to refer to commuting to work. The 84% who responded “N/A” were described as “working from home and other”; this did not mean that they never used any form of transportation, including walking. Cuomo said that the message of the study was that “the government has done everything it could…. Now it’s up to you.” It’s a convenient message for a government official who presided over the worst coronavirus outbreak in the country.
NYT’s ‘Real Coronavirus Death Toll’ Is Anything But
A New York Times graphic feature, “What Is the Real Coronavirus Death Toll?” (5/5/20), informed readers that the Covid-19 pandemic hadn’t had much of an impact on total death rates in most states: “In some states, the number of deaths so far looks roughly in line with those in a typical year, suggesting that the virus and its effects throughout medicine and society have not yet had a major impact on survival.” The accompanying graphic showed a huge spike in deaths for New York City, representing 23,000 excess deaths, and much smaller bars everywhere else—300 excess deaths in Michigan, for example.
The problem—as the explanatory text glancingly explains—is that the data the Times had from New York City went up to May 2, and was at least three weeks older everywhere else—leaving out the worst phase of the pandemic. The Times’ data from Michigan went up to March 28, for example; from March 28 to May 2, Covid-19 deaths there multiplied 36 times. The time lag rendered the Times’ data utterly useless for comparison purposes—but didn’t stop the Times from making a fancy graphic spread out of it.
Rhode Island’s Outbreak Looked Bad Because It Was Bad
The New York Times published a piece (4/28/20) whose point was that Rhode Island shouldn’t be so worried about its scary coronavirus figures:
Rhode Island gives the appearance of a state where the coronavirus is a fire raging, the average number of daily infections more than quadrupling since the start of this month.
The reality is more complicated and encouraging, as state health workers have tested more residents per capita in Rhode Island than in any other state, leading them to discover many infections that might have gone overlooked elsewhere.
The actual reality, though, was simpler and more discouraging: Rhode Island gave the appearance of having a bad outbreak of Covid-19 because it had a bad outbreak of Covid-19; at the time, its per capita death toll was the 7th-highest in the nation. While reporter Michael Powell suggested that average daily infections quadrupling was an artifact of increased testing, daily average deaths also almost quadrupled—from 2.5 per day on April 3 to 9.7 per day on April 28.
The Corporate Media That Dare Not Speak Its Name
Corporate media often like to suggest that there is no such thing as corporate media by putting the phrase in what are known as “scare quotes.” Politico (8/13/19), for example, reported that Sen. Bernie “Sanders has long accused the ‘corporate media’ of putting the interests of the elite above those of the majority of Americans.” A Washington Post headline (10/24/19) declared, “Bernie Sanders Says the ‘Corporate Media’ Wants You to Think He’s Done.” Vanity Fair (2/18/20) wrote: “Sanders has long contended that the agenda of ‘corporate media’ doesn’t necessarily reflect the people’s needs.”
Some of these same outlets, however, can acknowledge the power of corporate media—even if they don’t call it by that name. Vanity Fair’s “Joe Biden, Revenant, Was an Irresistible Media Story—and It Helped Win Him Super Tuesday” (3/5/20), for example, described Biden campaign aides gloating to CNN about riding their “earned-media tsunami” to victory on Super Tuesday—referring to news coverage following Biden’s South Carolina win—which was estimated to be worth at least $72 million during those crucial days.
