Posted on 08/20/2020 7:31:57 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Franklin Templeton, an investment company, commissioned a Gallup research study to learn about Americans’ perceptions about the Wuhan virus, with an eye to better understanding the recovery. What the project revealed is that Americans grossly overestimate the risk that the Wuhan virus presents, especially to younger people. That they’re so worried isn’t surprising considering how the mainstream media has reported on the virus. For Democrats, hysteria helps.
What struck me was that this deliberate effort to stoke ignorance is a replay of what the media did back in the mid-1980s with AIDS. Then, the press insisted that AIDS was an illness that could attack anyone, no matter their sex, race, or sexual orientation. This was a lie. In America, AIDS was always a disease primarily limited to gay men, hemophiliacs, and intravenous drug users.
Franklin Templeton summed up the findings as follows (emphasis mine):
Our Fixed Income CIO Sonal Desai unveils the first insights from the new Franklin Templeton–Gallup research project on the behavioral response to the COVID-19 pandemic and implications for the recovery: we find a gross misperception of COVID-19 risk, driven by partisanship and misinformation, and a willingness to pay a significant “safety premium” that could affect future inflation.
Although Franklin Templeton was surprised by the details, it’s doubtful any Republican is:
The first round of our Franklin Templeton–Gallup Economics of Recovery Study has already yielded three powerful and surprising insights:
- Americans still misperceive the risks of death from COVID-19 for different age cohorts—to a shocking extent;
- The misperception is greater for those who identify as Democrats, and for those who rely more on social media for information; partisanship and misinformation, to misquote Thomas Dolby, are blinding us from science; and
(Excerpt) Read more at admin.americanthinker.com ...
Six months into this pandemic, Americans still dramatically misunderstand the risk of dying from COVID-19:
- On average, Americans believe that people aged 55 and older account for just over half of total COVID-19 deaths; the actual figure is 92%.
- Americans believe that people aged 44 and younger account for about 30% of total deaths; the actual figure is 2.7%.
- Americans overestimate the risk of death from COVID-19 for people aged 24 and younger by a factor of 50; and they think the risk for people aged 65 and older is half of what it actually is (40% vs 80%).
By misleading Americans about the risks of the Wuhan virus, the Democrats are advancing several political goals: They destroyed the blazing Trump economy, they’ve forced people into government dependence, and they think they’ve given the teacher’s union a winning hand in forcing “social justice” on America’s public schools.
The problem for the left was that a disease that was almost entirely limited to people engaging in risky behaviors was not a way to get funding for the disease or sympathy for the sufferers. That’s how the myth was born that AIDS affected everyone equally. That’s also how AIDS became, after cancer, the best-funded disease in America despite its relative rarity.
Michael Fumento finally exposed the deception in 1988 with a famous article entitled “The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS”:
The main problem with using AIDS to terrify heterosexuals into chastity is that it requires gross exaggeration of the risk. AIDS is a bloodborne disease that, 10 years after the first heterosexual AIDS cases began showing up in New York City, remains confined almost exclusively to homosexuals, intravenous (IV) drug abusers, recipients of blood products prior to 1986, and their steady sexual partners.
Only about two percent of all diagnosed AIDS cases in this country have been attributed to heterosexual transmission in native-born Americans, a figure that has held steady for several years now. In New York City, the heterosexual AIDS capital of the United States, only eight males have been identified as having gotten AIDS from heterosexual intercourse.
Wuhan virus is a nasty disease. However, if we had we protected the vulnerable (the old and those with pre-existing conditions), and then gone along with business as usual, it would have passed through America like nothing more than a terrible flu season. Instead, though, just as Democrats weaponized AIDS, they also weaponized the Wuhan virus.
That’s their playbook. As Rahm Emanuel told his fellow Democrats, “Never let a crisis go to waste.”
Or Dems are plain stupid, which we already know.
Another one of Fauci’s shining moments....
I was unfortunately subjected to about ten minutes of a local newscast while a guest in someone’s home last evening.
I believe I have identified the source of the STOOOOOOPID.
And politically, the homosexual and assorted liberal activists blamed Ronald Reagan for the spread of AIDS.
They blamed him for not spending enough healthcare research and resource money on AIDS. They blamed him for reacting too slowly to the AIDS crisis.
They didn’t blame people who engaged in risky behaviors which spread AIDS. They blamed Reagan for not doing enough to fight AIDS.
Which all says a lot about the mindset of certain people.
It’s worth noting Fauci reached hero status because he led the effort to change the narrative away from AIDS being a homosexual disease which it was.
People think the risk of death for older people is 40%? And it's actually 80%?? Huh?
The biggest problem facing the country is that too many Americans are remarkably ignorant about Democrats.
Fauci makes me think of Lysenko — one of the Soviet Union’s greatest scientists. Until people figured out that he didn’t know what he was talking about.
It’s written correctly, “half” (40%) of “what it actually is” (80%).
It's gotten far worse and far more biased than it's ever been. They don't even try to hide it anymore.
I haven't watched television news in years but when I do catch part of it I'm shocked at how frequently they replace the talking heads. They must pay most of them so poorly to offset their "high dollar" celebutards.
So if you develop COVID and you are over 65 there is an 80% likelihood of death? That seems extremely high.
On top of that porn stars are at high risk of HIV. In fact a female porn Star is at higher risk of HIV than a female legal prostitute.
I agree but the cohort includes all the elderly. IMO it should be broken down into 10 year segments. At 65 the risk of death is surely not 80%. At 90 it’s probably over that. Anymost anything can kill you at that age.
No,
This was worded awkwardly. It means that 80% of people dying of coronavirus are over 65 years. On the flip side, if you are over 65 years old and get Covid, your odds of surviving is about 85%. Or 15% of people over 65 are going to die if they get the virus. That are not particularly great odds, but still most older people survive.
As a matter of fact, I do not know the odds within the group of 65+, but looks like the people in 60ties are in lot better shape than in 80 ties. I read that the median age of Covid deats is 80 years. For the Rio Linda folks, it means that half of the covid deaths are folks older than 80.
They might have defeated the virus had they told the truth. Fauci never did deliver a “promised” vaccine.
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