The front page of the New York Times (late) print edition for March 20, 2020, bore a large map of the United States, illustrating reported cases of Covid-19 by state and county, as of March 19, 4 p.m. EDT. Readers in the paper’s home city might have been particularly interested in the count for the state of New York—which, according to the map, was up to 5,200+ cases:
New York Times print edition (3/20/20), giving the number of reported Covid-19 cases as of 3/19/20.
Curiously, the morning that paper was delivered, the online version of the map, with the supposedly latest figures, had cases in New York State at 4,100+—1,100 fewer, a reduction of almost 20%—with no explanation for the discrepancy. (Illustrating the exponential growth of the outbreak, by the afternoon of March 20, the online map had 7,100+ cases for New York State.)
New York Times online edition, giving the number of reported Covid-19 cases on the morning of 3/20/20.
I bring this up not because it’s easy to keep track of ever-changing numbers in an epidemic, but because it’s so vital to provide accurate information, particularly about the outbreak’s growth, and especially when you are an outlet that officials and opinion-shapers are likely to look to for guidance when making decisions and recommendations about the drastic measures needed to halt the coronavirus.
The Washington Post‘s Jennifer Rubin (3/18/20) misleadingly suggests that in the best case scenario, the US will lose 1.1 million lives to the coronavirus.
A less excusable example of an influential media voice failing to get the story straight was Jennifer Rubin‘s March 18 Washington Post column, which rightfully lambasted President Donald Trump for fatally bungling the response to the pandemic. But in that column, Rubin did her own bungling, writing:
Trump did not show any real recognition of the magnitude of the problem until his administration got hold of a study from Britain. “The Imperial College London group reported that if nothing was done by governments and individuals and the pandemic remained uncontrolled, 510,000 would die in Britain and 2.2 million in the United States over the course of the outbreak,” the Post reports. Even if we now institute uniform, serious measures to mitigate the spread of the virus, we would “reduce mortality by half, to 260,000 people in the United Kingdom and 1.1 million in the United States.”
By Rubin’s account, we’re doomed to a seven-figure casualty toll, no matter what we do. But that is not what the Post news article she’s citing said. Immediately after the passage she quotes—but interrupted by a photograph—the story continues:
Finally, if the British government quickly went all-out to suppress viral spread — aiming to reverse epidemic growth and reduce the case load to a low level — then the number of dead in the country could drop to below 20,000. To do this, the researchers said, Britain would have to enforce social distancing for the entire population, isolate all cases, demand quarantines of entire households where anyone is sick, and close all schools and universities — and do this not for weeks but for 12 to 18 months, until a vaccine is available.
From 260,000 to 20,000 is, obviously, a substantial drop; if the same reduction in deaths is envisioned for the United States, that would bring the toll down below 85,000. To exaggerate the cost in human lives of what your source offers as the best-case scenario by 1,200% is simply irresponsible.
The Washington Post (3/17/20) reported that a key British report imagined governments going “all-out to suppress viral spread”—which it did not.
And it should be recognized that her source, the Washington Post news article by William Booth (3/17/20), itself misrepresents the Imperial College study in a crucial way. It did not envision the government going “all-out to suppress viral spread”; you’ll note that its description of proposed actions does not include banning large public gatherings, or shutting down public spaces like restaurants, bars, cinemas and theaters, as New York City announced it would do on March 15. And it certainly does not contemplate all nonessential employees staying home, as one in five Americans had been told to do by March 20. (See FAIR.org, 3/17/20.)
Could these more strenuous interventions reduce the death toll below 85,000? Could they bring hope for a return to a semblance of normalcy sooner than a year or 18 months? It seems likely, but the Post report suggested that the comparatively modest restrictions modeled by the Imperial College are the best we can do.
Given that this study seems to have a profound impact on official crisis planning on both sides of the Atlantic, journalists seem to have had considerable trouble reading and comprehending what it is and isn’t saying. A New York Times article (3/17/20) devoted to the report, by Mark Landler and , described the relatively gentle virus-fighting steps modeled by the Imperial College as “radical lockdown policies” and “far stricter lockdowns,” though they don’t envision locking down anyone. They were far less sweeping than the shelter-in-place order that had been issued for seven Bay Area counties the day before (Mercury News, 3/16/20).
And by “rethinking,” the Wall Street Journal (3/19/20) means watering down in a way that puts millions of lives at risk.
It is crucial that the public understand that what seems to be the single-most important document guiding official decision-making, and the source for the dismaying projection that coronavirus-related restrictions may have to remain in place as long as 18 months, depends on the unstated assumption that the most vigorous actions taken to fight the epidemic have to allow business to continue as close to usual as possible. In this, the Imperial College, which as its name suggests is very close to the British government, appears to be guided by the same philosophy that informs a remarkable Wall Street Journal editorial (3/19/20):
This won’t be popular to read in some quarters, but federal and state officials need to start adjusting their anti-virus strategy now to avoid an economic recession that will dwarf the harm from 2008–2009…. Barring [a quick vaccine], our leaders and our society will very soon need to shift their virus-fighting strategy to something that is sustainable…. America urgently needs a pandemic strategy that is more economically and socially sustainable than the current national lockdown.
In other words, saving lives is all well and good, but we’ve got businesses to run. If that’s the attitude behind the report that underlies the thinking of top US and British officials, citizens need to know that—and they won’t learn it from inaccurate reporting.
Thank you for this thought-provoking article. The coronavirus situation is like wartime. In times of war, it’s always been the “accepted” media behaviour of each country to provide encouraging positive information, (not necessarily true information) to reassure the citizenry.
While I think that the truth is the best way, perhaps there is a case, for the public mental health, for not letting on about the full impacts of both the disease itself, and the consequences of the “treatment”, (consequences which will also impact health) ?
Very useful article.
Also see https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-coronavirus-and-building-a-better-strategy-for-fighting-pandemics
Breaking news: human beings to be re-classified by United States federal government as “economic activity units”.
I think the potential threats from civil unrest brought on by a global depression and draconian emergency measures could dwarf the lives put at risk from the coronavirus. How are most workers to earn a living when whole industries around the world are shuttered for months? What will happen to those who lose their job when airlines, the cruise industry, gyms, restaurants, bars, night clubs, etc go under? Government hand-outs like employment insurance will not save us, and many non-western countries have little to no money to hand-out anyway. The world, not just America, urgently needs a pandemic strategy that is more economically and socially sustainable than the current national lockdown.
Thank you for this precise article! Very important facts.
Useful criticism, and it’s a good idea to read the primary sources carefully as generalist reporters are doing their work in a rush.
I read the Imperial College study multiple times and think FAIR themselves are misrepresenting it. I wish FAIR would quote from it and cite exactly the sources of their conclusions about it endorsing more moderate strategies due to economic considerations.
The closest I see to that is the subtext: “However, suppression will require
the layering of more intensive and socially disruptive measures than mitigation. The choice of interventions ultimately depends on the relative feasibility of their implementation and their likely effectiveness in different social contexts.”
Basically the report laid out scenarios to help policymakers understand the impact of different choices.
The study makes a compelling case that to break the virus transmission and avoid a pile-up of deaths in ICUs we need to limit the interactions of the entire population (social distancing) and either household quarantine or just cancelling schools. For the no schools scenario, it appears to keep ICU cases down faster than household quarantine, but has worse results in the long-term.
They also predict the effects of a more modest “mitigation” strategy, (no events, etc.) but the results are terrible (“hundreds of thousands of deaths”) and I don’t read that as an endorsement.
“Overall, our results suggest that population-wide social distancing applied to the population as a whole would have the largest impact; and in combination with other interventions – notably home isolation of cases and school and university closure – has the potential to suppress transmission below the threshold of R=1 required to rapidly reduce case incidence. A minimum policy for effective suppression is therefore population-wide social distancing combined with home isolation of cases and school and university closure.”
Well, the US officials read this (see p. 19) and wisely decided to go beyond that suppression minimum:
“Combining all four interventions (social distancing of the entire population, case isolation, household quarantine and school and university closure) is predicted to have the largest impact, short of a complete lockdown which additionally prevents people going to work.”
My read of “household quarantine” is that it is the “radical lockdown” that FAIR is claiming the NY Times wrongly read from the report. Case isolation refers to the sick.
Thank you for this reply. I have not had a chance to read the original study, but what you said sounds very common sense. The rapid facts that we are being hit with on an hourly basis leave little room for accurate dissemination.
Okay, I think if my read of “household quarantine” is wrong and it’s only of households with suspected cases, then your point on this stands.
I wish they would define exactly what they mean by quarantine and social distancing so we didn’t have to guess, or mix common and medical understandings of terms.
So true! Lack of definition is why we are currently on ‘lockdown’ because so many people just treated ‘social distancing’ as a vacation.
Your recapitulation of the WSJ was unfair in suggesting it was $$ vs lives they were suggesting. Without the economy operating at a certain level the cost in lives from all common threats would grow to dwarf that from the virus.