Joy Pullmann of the Federalist takes issue with major media outlets’ poor reporting of President Trump’s bout with COVID-19.
The latest news cycle over President Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis illustrates yet again how destructive the U.S. corporate media are to national unity and a clear understanding of reality.
While we are all aware that COVID-19 can be a truly devastating and deadly disease for some, despite the volume of media coverage dedicated to it in the past seven months, the American public still lacks crucial context for understanding Trump’s diagnosis. Not only has major media coverage not brought clarity, but it has also, as usual, obscured reality. This is especially harmful to a story with such significant potential ramifications for the nation and world.
As the president himself has alluded to in his post-diagnosis social media posts, it’s common knowledge that the Wuhan virus hits the elderly especially hard. Trump is 74. Yet even among his age demographic, surviving the disease, not death, is by far the norm.
According to the Centers for Disease Control’s “current best estimate” based on the data so far, of Americans who are ages 70 and older, 94.6 percent who test positive for COVID will survive. Other countries have seen roughly similar survival rates. So the president’s odds are thankfully good.
They are improved by the fact that Trump is in relatively good health for his age and has the best medical care on the planet. In addition, medical professionals have learned a lot about how to treat COVID-19, and now have excellent success in doing so, especially when the infection is caught early. Trump’s was, since he is tested daily. Further, unlike the Americans who have been barred from effective coronavirus treatments due to anti-Trump animus, political correctness will not keep Trump from getting the best available treatments.