What we’re learning about Covid
The sad realities about journalism’s future
The Front Page
Morning Update
Saturday, December 18, 2021
By Ken Tingley
Here are two important statistics about the dangers of Covid-19.
Of the 800,000 people in the United States who have died from the virus, 600,000 have been over the age of 65. That’s three out of every four.
It means that older people are most at risk.
If we learned anything from the pandemic is that anyone who works or visits a nursing home should be vaccinated and wear a mask at all times. That’s just a best practice going forward.
But of course, nothing is absolute.
A day after those statistics were reported, it was learned that an unvaccinated18-year-old Queensbury High School student had died of Covid-19.
It is a rarity for sure.
Consider these statistics from the Times Union: Only 25 people under the age of 20 have died in the state from the virus out of 47,316.
“It’s a terrible, terrible situation,” Warren County's spokesman Don Lehman said. “We see more and more people who are younger who are getting seriously ill from this….We have not seen anyone under 40 who was vaccinated get seriously ill.”
Any death is tragic, but when it is a young person, it always seems to get greater attention. I hope this leads to more people getting vaccinated.
I hope it leads to everyone being more careful around senior citizens.
Fa-la-la-la-la!
My monthly visit to the transfer station was Friday. For the first time ever, this tedious little chore was made a little bit more joyous with Christmas music from a boom box sitting on the compactor.
It was appreciated.
Lie of the year
Politifact, which checks news stories and social media throughout the year, once again chose a “Lie of the Year.” And the winner is:
The 2021 Lie of the Year title goes to the collective attempts to downplay and deny the Jan. 6 insurrection, the most serious attack on representative democracy in modern times.
Sackler case
Nobody has gone to jail for unleashing OxyContin on rural America.
The makers of the drug, Purdue Pharma, recently negotiated a bankruptcy deal where in return for $4.5 billion settlement, it would be shielded from lawsuits.
That all changed Thursday when a federal judge said that deal could not go forward because it releases the company’s owners - the Sackler family - from liability.
Maybe the Sackler family still might be punished.
Layoffs
Here is some more bad news for newspapers. The Tow Center for Digital Journalism reported this week that more than 6,000 workers at news organizations around the country were laid off between March 2020 and August 2021.
Who is going to do the journalism we depend upon?
Fighting for journalism
Lee Enterprises, which owns The Post-Star and Buffalo News as well as 70 or so other newspapers, continues to fight back against a hostile takeover bid by a hedge fund.
Lee’s board of directors rejected Alden’s bid to buy the company, than used a defensive maneuver to fight off efforts by Alden to control its board of directors. Alden countered by suing Lee for being denied a chance to appoint three members to Lee’s eight-member board of directors.
Margaret Sullivan, media columnist for the Washington Post and a previous editor of The Buffalo News, shared her angst about the potential takeover this week.
She had this to say:
“What I do believe is that local news organizations, including legacy newspapers like the Buffalo News, can survive in the new era if they behave strategically and wisely. They have to continue to move steadily into the digital present and future, while deepening the bonds with their communities and not alienating their loyal longtime readers. One absolute necessity is providing enterprising journalism that serves the public interest — something that is impossible without adequate staff and resources.”
What would you do?
An acquaintance was telling me a story about her daughter doing an internship in Denmark. She said that Denmark was very safe because each person was given a handgun when they were 18 and shown how to use it. The result was that Denmark had no crime.
The story didn’t sound right to me. So I fact-checked it.
Denmark is in fact one of the safest countries in the world. But it also has possibly the strictest gun ownership laws in Europe.
I couldn’t find anything about its citizens being given guns at age 18.
When my acquaintance asked me what I was looking at on my phone, I failed to share this information in the spirit of the holiday.
What would you have done?
Tweet of the Day
Several local dams are at risk. This is the type of local journalism that you miss when you don’t read a newspaper.
I would certainly have -- in the Christmas spirit of charitable truth -- called out the "expert" on Denmark and handguns. Her assertions are so outrageously false....oh, wait, no they're so outrageous, how could they not be true? Oy, vay.
Good for Lee Enterprises, waging the good war against the vultures.
It’s scary to learn how people in my age group are SO much more susceptible to this virus than any other age group. And I wish I heard more Christmas music too.