Does anyone take the New York Times seriously anymore? Because if anyone does, I got a real doozy for you. Wednesday’s “The Morning” newsletter ran a piece asking “Do Covid Precautions Work?” and then answered the question in the subtitle “Yes, but they haven’t made a big difference.”
Think I’m kidding? Here’s a screenshot:
#facepalm @nytimes pic.twitter.com/8C4lUGLD8h
— Matt Margolis (@mattmargolis) March 10, 2022
So, they work … but they don’t …
Let’s be honest here. The answer is no. The New York Times knows the answer was no. But the New York Times being the New York Times didn’t want to say that COVID precautions didn’t work. Why not? Probably because they’re worried about getting banned by Facebook or something, so they had to go through the awkward contortion of acknowledging that the data says masking and social distancing and whatnot didn’t significantly change the trajectory of the pandemic, while also saying that they did.
Because journalism!
To reach their contradictory conclusion, the New York Times compared COVID data between red and blue areas of the country. I’d be willing to bet that they hoped there’d be conclusive evidence that blue areas fared better in the pandemic than those redneck, anti-vax, anti-mask red areas and probably soiled themselves when the data showed no statistically significant difference between them.
Sorry, New York Times!
And the headline wasn’t the only ridiculous part. The article poses the specific question, “Did Omicron spread less in the parts of the U.S. where social distancing and masking were more common?” and answers, “The answer is surprisingly unclear.”
Which again, means “no,” but you can’t challenge the narrative … not even now.
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