I pay for the Post. Love their reporting. But man! I've never seen so much fear mongering as they've peddled in the last month. News is a product—I get that. But they're straining to wring every last drop out of COVID.
To me, these seem like natural articles to write in the middle of a pandemic, and their coverage has also seemed appropriate to being in the middle of a pandemic.
If a panic happened, this could lead people to things like looting. I think looting would be incredibly dangerous, more dangerous than the virus itself. Thus I find it borderline irresponsible to "stoke the fire" by writing an article like this without properly putting necessary disclaimers.
I am less concerned with panic. I think the greater danger now is people not taking Covid-19 seriously enough. Ironically, the not-wanting-to-cause-panic sentiment was what some grocery store management cited as a reason employees could not wear masks, as reported in the article.
Perhaps you are talking about op eds rather than news articles? (I have often felt that newspapers should do op eds in a different font or color from regular articles, but that's another story.)
But I can see how this is perceived as sensational starting with the headline. Things like "War Zone", and "As more of the die" really set the tone a certain way up front. OK, so how many have died. Forty one? Not sure how they compiled that number, but sure. Is that a lot? Well, I don't know. Can't say I have a frame of reference. How many deaths should we expect from a give occupational group, especially one that is at higher risk?
Well, let's keep reading, surely we'll get some hard analysis of the stats. Nope. Just a bunch of anecdotes and heart wrenching quotes from the interviews. Well, they do present some numbers from the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, maybe that's where they got the 41 dead number. So 1500 plus confirmed infected, 3000 plus not working from hospitalization, quarantine, et-cetera.
Again, is that a lot? I'm not sure, the author give us no frame of reference. Seems like they want us to think it is a lot though. I mean if the the thesis holds true, then these numbers should be well above average, considering the increased risk these workers have.
This topic is clearly relevant, and something we should all be sensitive of when we go out to shop. These folks are under an incredible stress right now. But I can see how articles like this could be seen as 'fear mongering' or sensational. It should be the reporters responsibility to do the leg work, and be able to frame the data, and the thesis, in a reasonable way.
We don't really get that analysis here, just sad stories and quotes, that just leave us feeling bad or scared at the end. We are left with a 'feeling' that grocery store workers are dying at some 'astronomical' rate, and the inside of every store is chaos.
I wanted a frame of reference, how bad is this thing, really? I googled “Coronavirus vs swine flu vs sars vs mers vs West Nile virus.” Every single hit was a conspiracy theory like website. Which tells you that no “serious” journalist could be bothered to ask that obvious question. Nope. All they can be bothered to do is write fear mongering drivel this.
news sites post infection/death numbers for covid front and center, conveniently ignoring the 98-99% of non-covid deaths that are just as tragic and heartbreaking. they did that during 9/11 and for every mass shooting since. it's sickening.
23K infections / 40M people in CA = 0.058% infection rate
682 deaths / 40M = 0.0017% death rate
yet neither of those percentages are listed. both rates have crested, yet there's no chart or graph emphasizing that. no curve showing high and low expectations of either rate modeled into the future.
most of the deaths have one or more co-morbidities, which means that a harsh flu or bacterial pneumonia would likely be roughly as deadly to them. no indications of that either. this kind of news could actually help people grasp the real risks rather than simply inducing anxiety and panic.
flu pandemics are preventable via the same collective measures, potentially saving 40K lives a year in the US, yet we don't get hysterical about collective action every winter.
media attention being understandable is different from it being reasonable.
I think this belies a lack of understanding of COVID's growth curve. Early numbers were low compared to other diseases, but the exponential nature of the spread means that without the drastic measures we are taking (which some call excessively fearful) COVID could enact a massive death toll.
Even with all the measures we are taking, COVID has already overtaken all other causes of death in the USA: https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-leading-cause-of-dea...
Are service workers not dying for your convenience? Are they not working despite lacking PPE or hazard pay or the economic privilege of having the option to quit and/or work from home, as so many HN readers do?
If you don't think it's actually this bad, I recommend that you sign up for a part-time gig working at a grocery store and see how fun it is.
Of course its horrible, I assume we all hate to hear this. I think about how bad it must suck to work at a grocery store every time I go and see the people there working. The issue I think is when an article puts things like "It's a War Zone", or "As more of them die" in the headline for example.
It is true it must be very risky and stressful to work there right now. Hard to imagine. But there isn't much actual analysis of the numbers. 'At least' 41 are dead? How did they calculate that number? Is that a lot? More than we would expect for a give occupation? I don't know, they don't really explain, it's just a bunch of super sad stories and interview quotes.
"It's a War Zone" is incorrect, but "As more of them die" is not. The former is a dumb metaphor, the latter is just a correct description.
Given worker conditions, it is plain that they are being put at unnecessary risks and that these risks are fundamentally exploitative - folks have to either put their lives at risk for corporate profits (no PPE provided, frequently) or potentially become homeless, lose their insurance during a pandemic, etc. Estimating the numbers is something to go do, sure, but it doesn't change the dangerous material conditions on the ground and the dark nature of our response. Look at who bears the burden and why they do it.