As Americans grow concerned over the highly contagious Delta variant of Covid-19, they're increasingly looking to data to get an idea of how serious the threat is in their local community. While numbers in Florida are high, a recent Centers for Disease Control "mistake" made the case numbers look worse than they really were, which was then parroted by the media. Yes, they fixed it, but most people never see story corrections, which makes the Texas Tribune's error all the more unforgivable.
On Aug. 12, the paper had to issue this whopper of a correction, emphasis mine, to a story about the number of children hospitalized in the state from Covid-19 and RSV.
"An earlier version of this story overstated the number of children who have been hospitalized in Texas recently with COVID-19," the statement reads. "The story said over 5,800 children had been hospitalized during a seven-day period in August, according to the Centers for DIease Control and Prevention. That number correctly referred to children hospitalized with COVID-19 since the pandemic began. In actuality, 783 children were admitted to Texas hospitals with COVID-19 between July 1 and Aug. 9 of this year."
That’s one heck of a correction. https://t.co/UBBgV0OXXm pic.twitter.com/uhxkYABwR3
— Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) August 12, 2021
Only off by 5,017. ????? https://t.co/6bC8laYu1F
— For America (@ForAmerica) August 14, 2021
As some pointed out on Twitter, the damage was already done.
Narrative set.
— Hondo McClain (@HondoNelson) August 12, 2021
Damage done.
This correction will be ignored. https://t.co/MWc3q4Zqxf
Kinda like the CDC making an “error” of 10,000 cases in Florida. Anyone else seeing a trend here? #FactsNotFear https://t.co/lZHU78mESy
— Kelly Victory MD (@DrKellyVictory) August 13, 2021
I love that in the correction they try to say they got the overall number correct even as they admit the 7 day number was completely wrong. https://t.co/2uyIRHUier
— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) August 12, 2021
