Mask Murderers? And Another Misleading Headline On Race Relations

1.  Virus Notes

Yes, it's a paradox - the more you shut things down, the more it hurts the economy, but then the less you shut things down, the higher the cases go, and that hurts the economy too.  So, accept the economy is going to take a big hit.  If most people wear masks in public, we could open sooner.  Now, will that be with a few deaths or with lots of deaths?  That's the decision.  It's not the economy this time, it's the virus, stupid!

Since I wrote that note here a few days ago I ran across an article  From University of California San Francisco:

"The latest forecast from the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation suggests that 33,000 deaths could be avoided by October 1 if 95 percent of people wore masks in public."

 

 30,000 deaths!!??  Dare I call those not wearing masks in public - Mask Murderers?  It almost works, though unmasked murderers would probably be more accurate.  

And if you think there are hardcore folks who won't wear masks, because they won't give up their constitutional rights, wait until you tell parents they have to send their kids to schools that aren't COVID-19 safe.  But DeVos is all about destroying public schools and transferring public school funds to private schools.  This move by the president bleeds money from public schools, and gives Republicans new ways to point at how bad public schools are.  But I think the president's dementia is so obvious to so many people now that it will backfire.


2.  Misleading Headlines  - in March 2019 I put up a post that is still getting regular hits today on Misleading Headlines.  That article goes into the history of misleading headlines.

Well I was struck yesterday by  a very misleading printed LA Times headline, which had a much better headline in the online version.  I've seen that before.  I guess editors have more room online.  I'm not sure how many people actually buy hard copy papers because of headlines any more, but if they do, there is the pressure to make them more compelling still I guess.


The paper headline and first paragraph was:

"Outlooks on race turn gloomier

"Californians’ perceptions of race relations in the state have shifted dramatically since the spring, with views statewide having grown significantly gloomier than they were five months ago, according to a new statewide poll."

Here's screenshot of the paper version:

I read the article, and actually, it's a hopeful article.  Basically, it said that since COVID and George Floyd, people's beliefs about race relations in the US are less positive.  That's not gloomier, which suggests things are getting worse.  But what I took from that was that white people's attitudes got more realistic.  And you have to stop denying before you start changing.  So it's all good.  

When I looked for the link to the online version to put on this post, I found a very different headline - one that mirrored my take on the article:

"Views on race relations in state alter dramatically as more white people see reality of discrimination, survey shows"

NOTE:  I've put up screenshots of the headlines, but I've also repeated them with text.  I do this when I can and it seems important, because seeing-impaired readers can't 'read' images.  the programs that turn text to sound can't read images.