The COVID-19 epidemic was disastrous to the elderly world-wide, but in Tompkins County; it wasn’t even a story.
Every nursing home in New York State is thoroughly inspected every year, down to the “Percent of long stay low risk residents who lose control of their bowel or bladder.” The conditions and resources New York’s nursing homes was well documented and understood by authorities; and they did nothing to avert the massive death toll – but that wasn’t a story.
What was the media view?
Old people are going to die, it’s only natural, they’ve lived a long time [and they’re a burden] and look; see how many have died from other causes . . . so let’s do a potboiler, throw in some other pandemics and recast the issue as one of historic inevitability.
The overwhelming statistical correlation of COVID-19 deaths with age was widely viewed without compassion, or even much interest, but after some judicious racial filtering, and a little massaging of numbers; a one-dimensional race-based story became the defining media take-away.
You can prove anything statistically; provided your viewpoint is narrow enough.
Statistics are increasingly the “tool of choice” for institutions and special interests seeking to mold opinion and validate their self-serving agendas.
Policy and public information is skewed by selective reporting, while at the same time; these frequently cited studies have reached a crisis level of fraudulent data and unreplicable results.
With the “don’t throw the bias out with the bath water” attitude of authorities, and a non-thinking population desperately seeking the comfort zone of entitlement; there could be a few clouds in our future.
Or in a new-school remix: “Don’t fix the problem, fix the blame.”