Media double down on vaccine narrative despite data - Analysis
by Yudi Sherman
Leave it to the mainstream media to shamelessly double down on a failing narrative.
On January 12, the NZ Herald ran a piece with the headline COVID-19 Australia: Why half of people in NSW intensive care are vaccinated. The article went on to say that New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet recently revealed that about half of the patients in the state’s ICUs are vaccinated.
In a frantic effort to save the “Unvaccinated Devil” narrative, the NZ Herald continued, “This may be surprising to some but it should not be taken as evidence the vaccines do not work. In fact, it shows the opposite.”
The article went on to say that 93% of NSW residents are vaccinated, with only 7% vaccinated, and then in a clever twist, said that this means that half of ICU patients are from that 7%.
What the article fails to mention is that according to data from the New South Wales government as of January 13, 69.8% of all hospitalized COVID-19 patients were vaccinated, as opposed to those who are unvaccinated, who make up 28.8% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
The article does, however, lead with the punchline: “The number of people in intensive care in New South Wales continues to climb as Covid spreads...”
In other words, with 93% of the NSW population vaccinated, cases are climbing, which indicates that the reason there is COVID-19 in NSW at all is due to the vaccinated, which make up nearly the entire population. This would not be unheard of, as many countries with the highest vaccination rates in the world are also suffering from the highest infection rates, such as Israel and Gibraltar. It would follow, then, that ICU cases due to COVID-19 would be the result of mass vaccination.
But the article really illustrates how the mainstream media and talking heads like Dominic Perrottet and Dr. Anthony Fauci continue to move the goal posts in a last-ditch effort to save the vaccine narrative.
When the vaccines were first introduced in 2020, they were touted by the media as being safe and effective against becoming infected by COVID-19. As time went on and the vaccinated continued to catch COVID-19, the media told us that vaccines protected against transmission of the virus. That, too, was shown to be untrue, as the vaccinated were found to be just as contagious as those who were unvaccinated. Then the news outlets and bloggers told us that the vaccine protects against hospitalization and death, which again was shown to be untrue.
The current narrative, as espoused by the NZ Herald, is that the vaccine doesn’t kill you as much and to the media, that must be celebrated.
On January 21, Bloomberg News compared the vaccine to the ring from Lord of the Rings, effectively treating the vaccine as a magical talisman that can unite the world under its power. “One Covid shot to rule them all, one Covid shot to find them, one Covid shot to bring them all and in the darkness bind them,” the news outlet crowed on Twitter.
While the media’s obsession with the vaccine is approaching religious devotion, it should be remembered that a truly safe and effective vaccine is celebrated because it prevents illness. It is not celebrated because it will kill you less.
