Corona Calls for 12.16.2024 – Where is the winter wave?

KPFA - Corona Calls

Discussed in this episode:

• The CDC’s dashboard shows little indication of a winter surge in cases so far. This may only indicate a delayed surge, owing to residual population immunity from a summer case surge that carried into the fall.
• Brian (who is writing this) screwed up! A child illness in Marin possibly related to consuming raw milk has not, in fact, been been ruled out as a case of avian influenza case.
  What’s going on: there are conflicting results from lab tests of specimens taken from the sick child, so public health authorities have not conclusively determined whether the illness did or didn’t result from avian influenza.
  How Brian got it wrong:
  1. This article in a local news outlet was, initially, incorrectly-headlined “Marin illness ruled out as avian influenza,” even though the body of the story makes clear that avian influenza was not ruled out. (News headlines are generally not written by the reporters who write the stories).
  2. Google’s cached search results preserved the false headline even after it had been changed on the paper’s website.
  3. Brian saw the headline float by over the weekend without reading the story, then did a quick Google search during the live show when the topic came up, and relayed the bad information from the search preview on the air. Which is a great study in how misinformation can spread without malicious intent, and a reminder to read past the headline if you’re going to rely on any information from a story.

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