Last month researchers in Texas estimated that nearly 5 million of the state's residents had been infected by the COVID-19 virus—more than four times as many as the official tally of confirmed cases suggested. Although the gap implied that the virus was much less deadly than people initially feared, the Houston Chronicle framed the prevalence estimate as bad news.
That choice reflects a broader pattern in American press coverage of the pandemic, which tends to accentuate the negative, exaggerate risk, and ignore encouraging information. The result is not just depressing but misleading and potentially counterproductive as Americans are told to keep up their guard against the virus during the winter they will have to get through before vaccines are widely available.
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