When it comes to a new, freak virus out of China that has flummoxed the global medical community, casting partisan blame seems like a really small thing to do. Yet the media can’t help themselves.
President Trump is obviously the top target, but no one is standing above all others as Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who from the beginning has mostly avoided blanket statewide restrictions and rules that are meant to depress coronavirus infections.
The New York Times on Tuesday ran the headline declaring that the virus “is killing young Floridians,” even though the article itself admitted that the amount of people dying in the state under the age of 44 is “relatively small.”
It’s actually very small. There have been 200 deaths under age 44, whereas the death total for all ages is a little over 8,000 — and that’s in a state larger than New York, where more than 30,000 died. Speaking of which, in New York, 750 people up to the age of 44 have so far died from the virus. Where’s the New York Times story about how the virus “is killing young New Yorkers?”
To cap it all off, positive cases of the virus have been falling in Florida now for almost a month. So why is the New York Times doing this? What could it be that makes Florida so important during an election year? I’m at a loss.
To drive home the point, a separate story in the New York Times about struggling chain retailers and restaurants in New York actually claimed that in Florida, “the virus is far worse.” No, it’s not, and it never has been. True, the virus started spreading in Florida after it had taken out more than 30,000 people in New York. Even so, the numbers don’t even come close. Florida has a bigger population than New York, but because it doesn’t have a showboating Democratic governor, it was always bound to be treated this way.
