The mainstream media and the powers that be have certainly given us reason to doubt their expertise on telling the truth about the Wuhan coronavirus. Perhaps one of the most stunning examples came from The New York Times' Apoorva Mandavilli, in her Thursday article about how "The C.D.C. recommends Pfizer-BioNTech boosters for children 5 to 11."
Professor Shamik Dasgupta and our friends at Twitchy picked up on the correction which was quietly issued the same day.
Oof @nytimes that is one hell of a correction. pic.twitter.com/Zb3oRRIGie
— Shamik Dasgupta (@ShamikDasgupta1) May 19, 2022
"Nearly 4,000 children aged 5 to 11 have been diagnosed with a Covid-related condition called multisystem inflammatory syndrome during the pandemic," a portion of Mandavalli's piece currently reads. It initially claimed that 4,000 children had "died."
That's a devastatingly huge difference, especially when the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) noted that as of May 2, 2022, there have been 68 deaths from multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C).
Do NYT editors not read their own paper? Just a few days ago they noted there were less than 400 Covid deaths in that age group in the last 2 years. That wasn’t hidden in a crossword puzzle. No editor says, “huh, that seems odd. Maybe we should double-check that?”
— BearFlagFan (@BearFlagFan) May 20, 2022
That’s the kind of correction that deserves a front page maybe?
— Bleu Cheque (@VERBAL_CHANCLA) May 20, 2022
Journo and editor conveniently overlooking it before print. ‘Well both words start with a D and it could be deadly. Go get a 5th booster to be protected’
— Anthony (@11210random) May 20, 2022
“John is an egregious mass murderer.”
— LiveFree vs DIE ? Just IXL (@UBUandIXL) May 20, 2022
Correction: John watched a documentary about an egregious mass murderer.
Minor error. Sorry for the confusion.
What a relief! I was diagnosed with chicken pox in second grade and thought I'd been dead for 45 years https://t.co/auNJvONR9c
— Joe DeVito (@JoeDeVitoComedy) May 20, 2022
Another tweet from Professor Dasgupta pointed out that there was also a retraction issued last October. The article and one of the several corrections was also about vaccines for children. The most glaring example included how Mandavilli had misstated how many children had been hospitalized with the virus.
"The article also misstated the number of Covid hospitalizations in U.S. children. It is more than 63,000 from August 2020 to October 2021, not 900,000 since the beginning of the pandemic," the correction read in part, getting the number off by 837,000 cases. Twitchy had also taken notice of that correction.
Up there in the same league as gems like this.
— Shamik Dasgupta (@ShamikDasgupta1) May 19, 2022
Anyone spy a pattern? pic.twitter.com/Q0alfPK8Rm
The New York Times is hardly the only one to grossly exaggerate data about the virus though, including and especially when it comes to children. Earlier this year, in March, as Katie covered, the CDC quietly updated its data on child deaths from the virus.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor also over exaggerated the amount of children who were hospitalized with the virus when in January during oral arguments she claimed that "over 100,000" children are in "serious condition" as a result. She was awarded "Four Pinocchios" by The Washington Post's fact-checker soon after.
Now we know where Justice Sotomayor was getting her inaccurate Covid data.
— KayS (@SauersKays) May 20, 2022
One Twitter user suggested to Professor Dasgupta that this is where Sotomayor was "was getting her inaccurate Covid data."
It has particularly been a bad week for The New York Times overall on the issue of children and the virus, actually. As Guy highlighted earlier on Friday, Shawn Hubler on Tuesday wrote how "With Plunging Enrollment, a ‘Seismic Hit’ to Public Schools," in which Hubler expressed confusion about a drop in public school enrollment.