[conspire] (forw) Case study in pandemic misinformation & biased reporting

[Rick Moen]

----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> -----

Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2022 15:15:35 -0800
From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
To: Dire Red <deirdre at deirdre.net>
Subject: Case study in pandemic misinformation & biased reporting
Organization: If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already.

Twitter thread:
https://twitter.com/Orla_Hegarty/status/1492586980735082497

Orla Hegarty is Assistant Prof. of Architecture at University College
Dublin.  In April, she was contacted by a Irish Times reporter Ronan
McGreevy asking if she could comment for a story to be published in
three days.  The draft story claimed a "study" by Ireland's Health
Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) had established that only about
one in 1,000 COVID-19 cases come from an outdoor setting, and the
reporter asked whether this didn't mean the government's health measures
weren't too restrictive.

The reporter attached HPSC's response, which did _not_ state what the
reporter claimed, but was a data dump from 42 _outbreaks_, and which 
specifically disclaimed that HPSC had no way of determining where
transmission occurred.  The reporter was wildly extrapolating a small
study of outbreaks to nationwide cases, and deciding unilaterally and
without data which outbreaks had involved outdoor transmission.

Hegarty replied to reporter McGreevy, clarifying these failures of 
data and logic.  Nonetheless, McGreevy's story went to press unaltered,
pushing the "1 in 1000" / "0.1% of cases" claim heavily.

...which was promptly pushed up and uncritically repeated as being a
claim _not_ by an Irish Times reporter but by HPSC by...

o  The Standard (UK)
o  The New York Times
o  Il Riformista (Rome, Italy)
o  The Times of London's science editor, further citing a totally 
   misinformed UK academic at U. of Reading

McCreedy then published a follow-up story, furthering the error, despite
the Health Service Executive's Chief Clinical Officer having put out a
statement saying the first story was wrong.  In response:

o  The New York Times ran the mistaken claim again.
o  An academic paper in _BMC Infectious Diseases_ cited the bullshit
   story in its footnotes as "research"
o  British Medical Journal cited it as a reliable source.
o  As did another academic paper in Environmental Health Perspectives
o  As did a third academic paper in Science Direct
o  And quoted by NPR and other reputable mainstream sources

In the Irish Parliament, the Minister for Health was asked about it
during question time, and debunked the claim.

Orla Hegarty tried to set the record straight, at NPR.

o  Breitbart cited the "0.1% of cases" bullshit as fact
o  As did a research paper in Turkey
o  As did the WHO's Special Envoy on COVID-19 in a radio interview
o  Which "research" has been continually cited by lobbyists & politicians 
   as a reason to change public health policy.



----- End forwarded message -----