Which Way the Trend?

Throughout the covid-19 pandemic, citizens have been showered with information. Since it was a novel and new disease, there was a rush to describe how it transmitted, its effects, and more. Some of the information was sincere. Some of it was facetious. Some of it was exaggerated. Some was frank and accurate.

And all that information can mixed up together. You could never tell how accurate or reliable a statement as. Sure, you could believe Dr. Fauci more than a local news anchor or movie star. But even the most reliable sources of news glitched from time to time. Here’s an example:

One Tuesday morning, December 29, 2020, The Washington Post online displayed an article about the recent volume of air travel. The article fretted that air travel during the Christmas holiday season was likely to boost new cases of covid even higher than the already surging number of covid cases across the nation. Here’s the opening paragraph of the Post article:

Despite weeks of increases in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, U.S. air travel hit a pandemic record this weekend as Americans crisscrossed the country for the holidays — a sign, some public health experts warn, that yet another surge could be on the horizon.

The wording, “Despite weeks of increases in coronavirus cases,” is inaccurate. At a time of the article, the national trend in new cases was down, and had been trending downward for two weeks or more. According to the Post’s own dashboard of covid cases, the US rate of new cases was down by 16% at that moment

As of December 29, only seven states were trending upward. The US rate was moving downward, and most states ere falling, too.

It is possible that the Post was looking at the increases from earlier in the year. There had been a spike during November. But it is also likely that the writer of the air travel story simply wrote a lead line that made the story more dramatic and topical.

The coronavirus pandemic is real and serious national health crisis. Citizens have been called on the believe and obey instructions. They’ve been called on to accept the authority of sources of information. Saying the trend is up, when it is down is perhaps harmless. But it is not good journalism.