Corona in New York city – panic, rumors, and misinterpretations: now we know that corona covid-19 is just the common cold, how can we understand what is happening in NYC?

Abstract

The media is strongly and uncritically reflecting the belief that Corona virus COVID-19 is a deadly virus, that causes high mortality in NYC. The belief is coming from the World Health Organization WHO, who has estimated the infection mortality rate (IMR) to be 3.4%, but scientist all over the world is now based on mortality statistics and autopsy studies documenting that the IMR of COVID-19 is less than 0.01%. The stories in the media seem convincing, with pictures of mass-graves and mobile morgues in New York City, and terrible statistics of death in NYC presented in New York Times. There is an obvious mismatch between the information that comes from the independent scientist and the WHO, and many people take the media stories from NYC as a proof of COVID-19 being a fatal new virus. We have therefore looked into the media stories about the effect of the 2020 Corona pandemic on New York City and have been able to document for each story we have analyzed that the story comes from an interpretation of reality that is based on the preconceived idea that NYC is under attack of a deadly new virus. This means that when we look at the data presented in the story, we come to the opposite conclusion: there is nothing in the data behind the media stories that justifies the conclusion that a deadly pandemic is happening in NYC. The data is in line with the IMR of 0.01% found by the independent experts while the stories are in line with the IMR of 3.4% estimated by WHO. We warn the world that WHO most likely is following the interests of the pharmaceutical industry that funds WHO, and encourage the media to be much more critical and thorough in their research, so the media stories about COVID-19 can be less biased in the future.