Headlines in the first two weeks of August have blared that the Delta variant is exponentially more contagious than regular Covid-19, that the CDC declared it as or more contagious than chickenpox, that it is the most contagious virus in the history of ever!!
Believe them? Why?? One of those fear-mongering headlines is an admitted falsehood. That chickepox thing? The CDC didn’t even have real data for that. They stole that tidbit from AN INFOGRAPHIC. In a NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE.
Seriously. The fact of this was exposed and reported by NPR, and has been in dozens of newspapers. The CDC did do this. But rest assured that we at Right Scoop will be punished by Google for having shared the story. True believers on social media will treat us as misinfo spreaders, even though we are CORRECTING misinfo and quoting NPR to do it.
Nevertheless, you should have the truth. From an NPR article headlined “The CDC Said The Delta Variant Is As Contagious As Chickenpox. That’s Not Accurate”:
In a leaked report, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made a surprising claim about the delta variant of the coronavirus: It “is as transmissible as: – Chicken Pox,” the agency wrote in a slideshow presentation leaked to The Washington Post on July 26.
Chickenpox is one of the most contagious viruses known. Each individual can spread the virus to as many as “90% of the people close to that person,” the CDC reports.
Is the delta variant that contagious as well?
“No,” they answer in the article. Delta Covid is very contagious, more so than the original Covid-19, they say. But chickenpox is very much more contagious. By a LOT.
NPR delivers this information in a way designed to soften the blow to the credibility of the CDC and the NYT because that, too, is part of the game. For a couple of days, that kept the revelation relatively quiet, and the scale of the fraud on the part of the CDC muted.
But Reason has no interest in playing nice.
Another CDC data flub distorts delta variant contagiousness. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) claimed the delta variant of COVID-19 is “as transmissible as” chickenpox. It’s not true.
Chickenpox, caused by the varicella-zoster virus, is one of the most contagious diseases we know of. “If one person has it, up to 90% of the people close to that person who are not immune will also become infected,” states the CDC website.
Right, that’s the background again. Just want it to be clear. Reason quotes the NPR article’s buried factoid, written casually as if it was no big deal: “The value for the chickenpox (and other R0s in the slideshow) came from a graphic from The New York Times, which wasn’t completely accurate.”
CAME FROM AN INACCCURATE GRAPHIC. THEY PUT IT OUT AS A PRESS RELEASE AND IT BECAME INTERNATIONAL HEADLINE MATERIAL AND IT WAS BASED ON A WRONG NYT GRAPHIC!!!
Reason adds:
Apparently, the federal agency charged with disseminating COVID-19 data and setting public health policy is taking its cues from a newspaper infographic. Oh my.
Using more accurate data, the delta variant proves more transmissible than O.G. COVID but less transmissible than the virus behind the chickenpox.
But if you ever doubt a single claim made by the CDC you are shunned as a heretic and treated as a loon.
We do not live in a SANE SOCIETY.
How many other things that are treated as actual Gospel are in fact wrong? When does free speech return to our discourse? Will it ever?