WTF, CNN?

Screenshot of the article in question.

Oh wow, you guys, look at this headline from CNN: A Covid-19 spike like the one in China is unlikely in the US, experts say. Here's why (March 31)

This article was just so OVER-THE-TOP with the anti-China bias, completely misrepresenting the situation, I just have to respond to it.

Like, that headline. Just, take a minute and marvel at how bad that headline is. "A Covid-19 spike like the one in China is unlikely in the US." It makes it sound like China is doing worse than the US in terms of how many people are getting infected and how many are dying. Makes it sound like, oh don't worry, things are way bad in China now, but the US won't be like that, thank goodness.

... I just. What on earth.

The whole article is about how China's and the US's strategies to fight the pandemic have been very different, and at this point, the number of cases in China is going up, while the number in the US is going down. Yes, this is true. Going up vs going down. I agree that those are different things. But that does NOT mean that the pandemic is worse in China than in the US.

Yes, it's true that zero-covid policies have kept the population in China from being exposed to covid at all, so we don't have immunity from being infected, and so if zero-covid ends, covid would spread very fast and be a disaster. Sort of like, EXACTLY WHAT HAS BEEN GOING ON IN THE US since early 2020. My God. The US has already had covid spikes worse than what China has. That's just seen as normal life in the US I guess. Whereas in China it's news.

Ugh, I mean, I am tired of blogging about this all the time now, but here we are, the CNN article was THAT BAD.

Let me show you a few graphs:

Okay, a quick google search for "china covid statistics" shows us this graph of covid cases in China from January 2020 until now:

And "usa covid statistics" shows this graph for the US, March 2020 until now:

Oh look, indeed, what a large spike on the China graph. And the US graph seems fine, going down even.

Maybe if you don't know how to read a graph, or understand what numbers are, you would think that the China one is worse than the US one.

Look at the axes though, seriously. China's y-axis is 5,000, 10,000, 15,000. The US graph goes up to a million. A million! This thing is 60 times taller than the China graph. SIXTY TIMES TALLER.

Here, I don't get paid enough for this nonsense, but let me graph them together on the same axis:

USA in blue, China in red.

So hey, DON'T WORRY, THE US IS NOT GOING TO HAVE A SPIKE LIKE CHINA what the hell.

And another thing: To a naive observer, it might look like China's lockdowns are so strict because the covid case numbers are so bad. But it's the other way around: Because our lockdowns are so strict, the covid case numbers are not bad. 

AND ANOTHER THING: The numbers for the US are an undercount. Because, from what I've heard, in the US now if you get covid you just deal with it yourself and don't really report it to anyone. People like to play the "I don't believe China's numbers" game, well I believe China's numbers but not the United States' numbers.

Ugh, that's the whole post, the numbers speak for themselves. Very mad at this CNN article for being so bad that I have to spend my time IN LOCKDOWN blogging about it.

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Related:

Wow, the Anti-China Bias in Western News Media

I Don't Know Anyone in China Who Has Had Covid

Lockdown Diaries: Antigen Self-Tests, and Children with Covid

See also: Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic (June 14, 2024)