Here are four aspects of the current covid situation the media could do a better job of addressing:
1. The media publish data that show that confirmed cases of the disease are increasing, but don't explain that that's perhaps entirely a function of increased testing. The more tests we give the more cases we'll find. The increasing number of cases doesn't mean that the situation is worsening, but that's the impression the failure to explain this gives the general public.
2. They tell us how many total cases there are but don't tell us how many of those cases are active. How many people included in the number of confirmed cases are now recovered? By only giving the number of confirmed cases and omitting the context they make it seem as if the numbers of victims is rising when in fact there may be fewer people suffering from the disease now than there were a few weeks ago.
3. Nor does the media ever seem to ask this question: In Pennsylvania where the stay at home order has just been extended to June 4th, 69% of the deaths from covid are in nursing homes, either patients or staff, so why doesn't the governor, Democrat Tom Wolf, direct resources to protecting those who live and work in these facilities and let everyone else go back to work? Indeed, early on in the crisis the Wolf administration required that infected patients from nursing homes who'd been sent to hospitals for treatment be returned to the nursing homes. Is it any wonder that the virus has spread through the occupants of these care facilities like a fire through dry straw?
4. Nor does the media seem eager to tell us that whatever argument is made to justify the stay at home order and keep people from working could be made with equal cogency for banning motor vehicles, but, so far at least, no one has proposed we do that. Every year in this country 38,000 people die in traffic accidents and 4.4 million are seriously injured. If we banned motor vehicles we'd save all those lives, but, those who impose the stay at home orders might retort, we can't ban cars and trucks because doing so would destroy the economy and throw millions of people out of work. People have to be allowed to risk getting behind the wheel.
Precisely.
