Washington, D.C. – Just when we thought it was safe, COVID is back. The delta variant is sweeping through the unvaccinated portion of the population, sending people to the hospital at an alarming rate. Government experts are once again talking openly about the need for masking protocols and the possibility of additional lockdowns just as the U.S. economy is starting to get back on its feet.
It’s clear America never really understood the disease, how it moved through the population, and why so many people died from it. It’s true the government’s response through two administrations have been uneven, sometimes swinging widely from one extreme to the other on important questions but the real blame for the public’s lack of comprehension of the dangers we face lies those to whom we look to explain what is going and why.
The surge in the number of people testing possible for the delta variant is once again dominating the national conversation as is the number of those people who end up hospitalized. Left out of the conversation is how this same variant appears to be considerably less lethal than the iteration of the disease believed by many to have originated in Wuhan, China.
You might think “More People Infected Yet Far Fewer Are Dying” would be a welcome headline. Most of us have yet to see it or anything like it. Whether that’s by design or another clue that the reporters and the experts who they interview about COVID aren’t as up to speed on what’s going on as they appear to be is something that itself probably needs to be investigated. Misinformation has been a problem throughout America’s COVID crisis and has led people to make all sorts of unwise decisions – the worst of which is probably the decision not to take the vaccine when there’s no valid medical or religious reason for abstaining.
As bad as that is, the push to have everyone take the vaccine regardless of the possible consequences does a near equal disservice to the American public. The failure of the “talking heads” to address various concerns people may have about the various vaccines while cheerleading for everyone to get vaccinated doesn’t help get people over their fears, real or imagined.
The root cause for all this is the public’s distrust of the media, which has been growing by leaps and bounds on both sides of the ideological aisle for more than a decade. Reporters promoting an agenda inside their reporting have shaken the average news consumer’s confidence they can be trusted to a significant degree. And when the coverage turns to “life and death” issues like the pandemic, that mistrust can produce fatal results.
A poll released Monday by Rasmussen Reports suggests it is the media rather than policymakers who are responsible for the COVID confusion. “Only 42 percent of Americans rate the media’s coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic excellent or good, and many have concerns about the accuracy of reporting on vaccine safety,” the pollster said. In a time of true crisis, a number that low should have news executives and network heads hanging their heads in shame.
Polls are not definitive but the trends they reflect tell us a great deal. According to Rasmussen Reports, the latest numbers are down from where they were in December 2020, when fully half the country said the coverage of the pandemic was “excellent or good.”
At the same time, the lack of confidence in COVID reporting may also be responsible for the spread of misinformation about the vaccine and the virus. “The number of Americans who think the media are exaggerating the COVID-19 threat has increased since December,” the polling firm reported, with the numbers now “dead even – 44 percent believe the media are exaggerating the coronavirus threat and the same percentage don’t think so.”
The poll found the distrust of the media to be generalized. “Among those who think the media are exaggerating the COVID-19 threat,” the polling firm found, “59 percent also don’t believe the media are accurately reporting about vaccine safety. By comparison, among those who don’t believe the media have exaggerated the coronavirus threat, 67 percent think the media are reporting accurately about the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.”
The fact younger Americans are choosing to reject the vaccine, something policymakers say is a significant factor in the way the number of confirmed cases of COVID-Delta has spiked over recent weeks, also appears correlated to attitudes about the media. In the poll, 48 percent of those under age 40 said they believed “the COVID-19 threat is exaggerated by the media,” while just 34 percent of those aged 65 and older said it was. Additionally, 38 percent of those participating in the survey said they thought “the media aren’t reporting accurately about the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines,” which probably explains a lot about why so many Americans have chosen not to be vaccinated.
The survey of 1,000 U.S. American Adults was conducted on July 21-22, 2021, by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence.
Peter Roff can be reached at RoffColumns AT GMAIL.com. Follow him on Twitter @PeterRoff.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AmericanActionNews.com
Peter Roff
Peter Roff is affiliated with several Washington, D.C. public policy organizations and is a former U.S. News and World Report contributing editor who appears regularly as a commentator on the One America News network. He can be reached by email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @PeterRoff.
MISinformation is not now, never was the problem. The real problem is Mega-Governmental DISinformation to cow all the sheeple into blubbering hysteria and abject submission.
Ever since Obama was first elected, our news media has been on a biased campaign of complete misinformation!!!
That is because, the Commies are now out in the open. They don’t care if Americans don’t want Communism. They have brain washed 50 years of students through High School and Colleges that, they have the anarchy they trained these fools for that have been burning our Cities down.
The New World Order/Great Reset owned media pounds the fake virus 24/7. Otherwise, how would we know that there is a virus? Stop complying or be imprisoned in communism. Wake Up
Until they release the data I’d take the threats with a grain of salt and I believe that Biden started this new super spreader party when he open the border
THE MEDIA IS ALSO RESPONSIBLE!!!!!! AS ARE THE ILLEGALS THAT ARE COMING INTO THIS COUNTRY AND “NOT BEING VETTED”!!!!!! OR. VACCINATED!!!!!!!! THEY ARE SPREADING THE COVID “EVERY WHERE THEY GO!!!!!!!!!! THANKS TO BIDEN
……..AND, the next election is fast approaching, and Democrats need to give us another “pandemic” so they can cheat on the election again!!!
Which they will attempt to accomplish again but Americans won`t be fooled in 2022 .
My guess is illegal foreign national invaders
It’s Biden for letting all these illegal immigrants into our country ,they come in packs with this Covid-19 we were doing just fine until Biden and Harris open our borders. We need to put Biden,Harris and the Democratics in Congress and Senate in prison and leave them there,the world will be a better place without them.
True danger in the vaccine (not really a vaccine) has not been reported. Misinformation about the vaccine – yes. The side effects of the vaccine is continually hidden from the public and the fact that the vaccine will not keep you from getting the virus. You may not get as sick or not even know that you have it. The real problem is there are alternatives and even a different way to keep from getting the virus and treating the virus if you were to get it. Hydroxychloroquine has still not been approved even though it has been proved that it works. Lily has come up with a treatment as has others. Where is the approval and “push” for those products? You can’t even get them unless you see the right doctor – shame!
SCAM. DISTRACTION FROM THE TREASONOUS ELECTION FRAUD AUDITS. ALL THE FRAUD PROOF IS POURING IN. DEMOCRATS ARE FREAKING OUT. TRAITORS GET EXECUTED.
Obama is guilty of treason , a very serious crime against the USA and the American people .
How do we know that there’s really anything going on with all the li-es and manip-ulation they’ve been putting o-ver on us.
Truth is the mortal enemy of the lie and truth is the greatest enemy of the State.
People don’t trust the media because they know they are pushing Democrat propaganda.
You don’t trust it, and I don’t trust it, but the whacked out nut case liberals do, and they willingly go right back to their mask prisons.
The true spread of the deceptive covid-19 is all political neverTRUMP culprits from the damned liberal social
medias, the damned liberal demoncrat lawmakers, the damned liberal rinos
the damned neverTRUMP liberal Hollywood elites
The only innocent politicals successfully righting wrongs of every kind by all the damned neverTRUMP cohorts are
🥰💥👍CHRISTrumpOwens and all their US TRUMPlican Lawmakers successfully US 2020-2036 Reelected Landslide
Amen & Amen👍❤️🥰
Close the borders and STOP the illegals being sent to the States unvaccinated and spreading the virus!
The poll is as much crap as is the information they are trying to force feed us through governmental agencies like the CDC, and the information the Media is trying to get us to believe. COVID-19 was NEVER as much of a threat as they said it was to anyone other than the elderly and infirm (duh, just like the annual flu and pneumonia…..which miraculously seem to have disappeared in 2020!). Remember the comments in the media that there would be MILLIONS dying on the streets? The unvaccine they want us to believe is a vaccine is more of a danger to all of us than anything else. The new variant, if you do your research and listen to the person who developed m-RNA vaccine technology, is being driven by the VACCINATED people, not the unvaccinated. Believe what you want, don’t believe what you want, but if you don’t wake up and start doing your own research and asking yourself the common sense questions, you deserve what happens to you down the road. This entire plandemic was about getting the one person in the free world who stood in the way of of their “Great Reset” and OWO out of the way so their plan could move forward. It was about seeing how fast all you sheeple would conform, mask up, stay home, stay six feet apart, and give up your businesses “all for the greater good”.
Earlier this week when the CDC made it’s announcement, ABC reported that the CDC had ORDERED ALL vaccinated Americans to now wear masks WHENEVER THEY ARE INDOORS. This isn’t even close to what the CDC announced. Now what the CDC did say has its own problems. But this level of incompetence or propaganda has no excuse, yet it happens multiple times every day.
Close the border would help! Why in the world is this administration leaving our borders open allowing people from who knows where into our country! Stop this stupidity now! Don’t tell me to wear a mask and then you are shipping these illegal aliens all over our country
How can we be sure the information we are hearing about the Delta strain of COVID is really true, and not some government scare tactic??? The Democrats are such liar’s, I don’t trust anything they say any more!!!
I don’t trust anything that comes out of their mouth. They lie every time they talk. Biden did tell the truth about rigging this election 2 times after Zuckerberg, paid off the supreme court, but that’s because he was trying to be cocky
If you think I believe all this trash the media and the government are pushing around you’re nuts. The lies continue because of the lack of control they have over conservatives. I know they are telling lies. It’s ridiculous what Gerry are doing to Americans passing off this so called surge. They just want to control us and we’re not having it.
The Democrat party and some of the republican party are owned by Chinas interest.
distrust of the media is being nice as the media lies all the time period. Covid has been a hoax used to control people, the numbers of both infections and deaths are so inflated it isn’t even funny. Tell me how many other virus have you heard about during this whole covid joke? Ho, none. I assume then that all the other viruses just got together and said, Hey let’s let covid do all the work. Second there will always be something to fear now because the really stupid people have show how easily it is to control you dumb a…. .But keep following and soon you’ll be eating out of garbage can, just like what happened in Venezeula
Fauci unleashed Covid on us on purpose. They might unleash Covid 21 on us next, they hope you will take both vaccines, the 2 vaccines will counter effect and millions more were supposed to die. This is in the news/ Trump started investigation into Fauci., Fauci did this to fraud the election covid 21 was to depopulate us. Hopefully Fauci changed his mind re unleashing Covid 21 on us.
Firstly there is no authentic test for Covid, but it has been discovered that certain swabs which are stuck up a persons nose and break the membrane to the penal gland can be contaminated before insertion! Fake tests create panic. The jab contains covid which is now called the Delta variant! Wasnt there supposed to be a South African variant and an Indian variant? Im in South Africa, still waiting for the first wave? I dont follow teh MSM brainwashing, I just look around my Town, a the Office or at the shops, on the road, and NO ONE IS MISSING! However our Hospitals are highly suspect and those that go in for most illnesses dont seem to come out and always Covid is on the death certificate. Moral of the story, stay away from testing and Hospitals, and MSM
Thanks so much for this information
What new horror, besides the new nuclear missile production are the murderers of Tiananmen Square cooking up next?
Australia better start building an ABM system to protect their major cities from Chinese nuclear blackmail. Will the US risk US cities, if China focuses on conquering all of Asia with nuclear weapons? China seems to have taken control of much of the US press. Biden sees Xi as a fellow socialist, who both see the people that they rule as worthless morons.
For months now hundreds of thousand illegal border insurgents have been crossing the border without vaccines and testing for all kinds of diseases and the media ignores this influx of plague! Making sure that enough carriers of virus crosses the border, and are spread around the country in the dark of night, to create a crisis.
It is as if the communist democrat cult party has a plan to do medical research on the American people like they did to the black population in studying syphilis. They are even suggesting paying for a poke!
The communist democrat cult party demands all to surrender their Rights and FREEDOM to their whims!
I’m so sick of people insisting the vaccine is safe and there’s no medical or religious reason to not get it. His about thousands of deaths and millions of serious side-effects? Not to mention miscarriages, menstruation problems, myocardial, and actually experiencing Covid after getting it? It’s a dangerous experiment, and people are being used as lab rats because there was not enough time to run the proper tests and follow protocol.
Every animal they tested this “vaccine” on died, people who’ve had Covid don’t need it, as their immune system has built a strong response to Covid (as immune systems are designed to do). People who had Covid and then had the vaccine are suffering ever more serious side effects than others.
“My body, my choice” isn’t exclusive to killing babies. And the government is using Covid to force Americans to do what they are told it lose their freedoms. It’s unethical, immoral, and disgusting.
Yes for power & control alone
No where in this article is there mention of alternative ways to treat the virus! The media controls us by OMITTING information. We are given only two options, i.e. get the vax or not. India dropped out of the headlines when they started using Ivermectin to treat people. It is extremely effective, much cheaper, and doesn’t provide a massive revenue stream to the vaccine hustlers like Fauci and the Chinese labs!
Don’t forget, the Chinese also provide all the masks and protective gear!! Follow the money!
Wish Colorado would follow Texas example BUT it’s ran by a Democrat who fails to think for himself.😢
No good reason to abstain from shot? How about common sense? It’s an experiment. NO trials done, and it is NOT a vaccine.
I’m disappointed in this article and the ranting comments. The statement blaming “unvaccinated” for the new variant is not well researched. Actually the scientific studies on the vaccines both before they were released and since they were released show that the “immunity” granted was short lived and antibody specific. It actually changes your immune system from being able to recognize all threats and respond to only recognize the original Wuhan strain. True immunity is only obtained through having the Covid disease. Natural immunity is far superior to vaccine immunity. It is the unvaccinated who will ultimately stop the spread of this virus because it will be they who develop immunity. This well researched and backed by doctors and scientists. And actually is the reason the CDC is flip flopping now. For a good rundown of the studies check out thehighwire.com
The New World Order/Great Reset owned media pounds the fake virus 24/7. Otherwise, how would we know that there is a virus? Stop complying or be imprisoned in communism. Wake Up
The jab is responible for it and the lame stream media is complicit.
Given that the vaccines are based on mRNA injections, and given the outcome of the problems encountered in animal testing of the SARS (SARS is Covid, it’s just the previous variant) mRNA vaccine, there is a legitimate reason to wait to see more about this vaccine in the long term.
for those who don’t know, the vaccinated animals were purposefully reinfected to see how well they could handle it. and the study showed they had little to no reaction to the disease, their bodies ignored it while the virus targetted vital organs and killed them. the outcome was a 100% fatality rate, all the animals died from heart failure due to an uninhibited SARS infection.
People are talking about this as some sort of Thanos style purge to “save the earth from over population and climate change” and it’s even been guessed to be part of the “Great Reset”.
Further more people are saying that covid testing labs are incorrectly indentifying viruses on purpose labelling the cold and flu as covid. some say they have been given incorrect testing specifications. most of the tests never look at the virus under a microscope to verify their info, instead they use a reactive testing strip. The implications are that Covid, may actually be gone. it may have been gone for a very long time and all this is a lie to keep the hysteria going till they can get 50% of the world vaccinated. At which point they plan to release the real covid virus again and cull off those who took the vaccine.
governments are no longer in control of the world, the WHO and doctors shame politicians if they don’t follow orders and threaten their countries with a new wave of infections, then a “variant” magically finds it’s way in.
Oh, and if you think thats bad, in the UK the medical authorities are claiming that Covid antibodies in vaccinated people are a sign of actual infection. if you don’t get the problem with that logic you need help. Of course vaccinated people SHOULD have antibodies, if the vaccine works thats what SHOULD happen. if it works, then antibodies are a sign of a working vaccine, not an actual covid infection! right now all the numbers of infections in the UK are a lie. they are counting vaccinated people as infected people and thus saying theres a massive rise in cases. again part of the scare tactic to get more people vaccinated, it’s a bad loop, get people vaccinated then use the outcome of the vaccine to say they have covid and +1 cases.
Ensure the politicians you don’t like get vaccinated, force them to provide actual public record of bloodwork showing that infact they did get the mRNA vaccine. it’s possible they may have recieved an actual antidote which is different than the vaccines give to everyone else. they plan to use it to escape the cull while touting they were vaccinated.
Let me think; during the2020 presidential campaign wasn’t a certain octogenarian, cognitively-failing candidate promising open borders and amnesty for all, or was that just my imagination? But then I guess that would make the state-owned media and social media sites overly complicit in ‘pushing’ the narrative! POTUS China Joe, V.P. Giggles, and the Democrats own the border catastrophe lock, stock, and barrel! 2022 & 2024 cannot get here soon enough!
Of coarse they are by messing with the numbers and printing false info really just plain lies.
This Author needs to investigate more and rewrite this article.