More than 550,000 Americans have died in COVID-19-related deaths. So, of course, the coronavirus is undoubtedly a serious and life-threatening disease, at least for vulnerable groups such as the elderly and those with compromised immune systems.
But people wildly overestimate the actual risks posed by COVID-19, according to several new polls that show the stunning extent to which the public has internalized alarmist misinformation.
A YouGov survey out this week reveals that young people aged 18 to 24 are the subgroup most anxious about resuming normal social life — despite being by far the least at risk from COVID-19. Indeed, the death rate for members of this age group is approximately 0.006% — a tiny fraction of a percentage. Meanwhile, folks over age 55 are the least worried about resuming social life, even though, statistically speaking, they have the most to fear from the coronavirus.
The level of comfort is inversely correlated to the level of risk. https://t.co/KhglrfQAOb
— Noam Blum (@neontaster) March 30, 2021
These stunning survey results reveal a public that remains woefully misinformed about the dangers posed by the coronavirus more than a year into the pandemic. And, unfortunately, the YouGov survey is by no means an outlier.
A Gallup poll similarly found that Americans wildly overestimate the likelihood that a COVID patient will require hospitalization. The correct answer is somewhere between 1% and 5%, the survey says, but fewer than 20% of people gave this response. Meanwhile, 1 in 3 respondents overestimated the risk of hospitalization by a factor of 10.
“The U.S. public is deeply misinformed about the severity of the virus for the average infected person,” the poll’s authors concluded.
~60% of Americans think the chances somebody with Covid must be hospitalized are ~10x higher than they actually are
Survey by Gallup and Franklin Templeton pic.twitter.com/RgyxiJmcfD
— Eli Klein (@TheEliKlein) March 20, 2021
How did the public wind up so woefully misinformed? Well, the inescapable conclusion is that alarmist media coverage and irresponsible doomsday rhetoric from government officials are at least partially to blame.
As Jon Miltimore has meticulously explained for FEE.org, research shows that much of the American media has exaggerated the threat of COVID-19 and overemphasized negative developments over positive.
Ivy League researchers from Dartmouth College and Brown University published a paper reviewing pandemic coverage that concluded U.S. media in particular skewed negatively compared to international media and scientific publications.
“Ninety one percent of stories by U.S. major media outlets are negative in tone versus fifty four percent for non-U.S. major sources and sixty five percent for scientific journals,” they found.
Sure, a pandemic is inherently negative, but the American media’s skew went beyond what was justified by the facts.
“The negativity of the U.S. major media is notable even in areas with positive scientific developments including school re-openings and vaccine trials,” the paper reports. “Stories of increasing COVID-19 cases outnumber stories of decreasing cases by a factor of 5.5 even during periods when new cases are declining.”
In a particularly acute example, I’ll never forget the Atlantic headline blasting Georgia’s unwinding of lockdown measures as an “experiment in human sacrifice.” Georgia, for reference, now ranks far better than New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois, Connecticut, and some other harsh lockdown states for COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 residents.
Similarly, when Texas rolled back its lockdown restrictions and mask mandates more than three weeks ago, it was decried by top Democrats as “killing the people of Texas” and signing “a death warrant for Texans.” Now, the state is hitting record-lows for COVID-19 case counts.
Meanwhile, the alarmist media coverage continues, and Centers for Disease Control Director Rochelle Walensky is warning of “impending doom” despite the U.S. hitting 3 million vaccinations a day. Is it any wonder Americans are so misinformed?
Still, some might wonder why this matters. Isn’t it better to be safe than sorry?
But the truth is that when it comes to vital public policy questions such as how to handle a pandemic (school closures, economic lockdowns, vaccine passports, and more), there are no easy answers or win-win solutions. Sound policymaking and individual decision-making amid complex crises are all a question of trade-offs. These trade-offs are matters of life and death too, with pandemic restrictions leading to economic disaster, mental health crises, increased drug overdoses, upticks in domestic abuse, and more.
The public can’t make sound judgment calls on pandemic policy if it vastly overestimates the threats and costs associated with the coronavirus. And that’s why COVID alarmism is a serious ailment in its own right.
Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a Washington Examiner contributor and host of the Breaking Boundaries podcast.
