The media love to twist the words of experts to generate fear-induced clickbait. This eternally contemptible practice has been made even worse and normalized with the advent of COVID-19.
On Tuesday, ABC employed a tortured interpretation of a statement given by the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to imply that COVID-19 vaccines may soon be useless. At a time when increasing vaccination is crucial, the only way to describe the networks’ conduct is to say it is deeply irresponsible.
On June 19, ABC posted an article on its Twitter account with the accompanying caption: “The CDC is concerned about the delta variant mutating to a point at which it evades the existing COVID-19 vaccines, Walensky says.”
Except that’s not what Walensky, director of the CDC, said during the Good Morning America interview from which ABC derived that caption.
When asked about the risk that the delta strain poses to vaccine immunity, Walensky answered that viruses can evolve in such a way that existing vaccines become less effective. In no way did she explicitly state or even imply that this was the case here, that there was imminent danger of delta mutating such that it would render existing remedies ineffective. Rather, Walensky merely discussed the theory, then stressed the importance of increasing vaccination rates, both to improve public resilience to illness and to lessen the chance of new, more dangerous variants cropping up.
The overarching message Walensky appeared to be trying to get across was that the public should get itself vaccinated; the way ABC framed her statements was almost the reverse.
ABC, by telling its sizable, liberal-leaning and thus COVID-19-paranoid audience that vaccines may not protect them, ABC hurts public confidence in vaccine efficacy. Lower public confidence could translate to reduced rates of vaccination that would in turn harm public health outcomes.
Is it possible that the delta strain mutates in such a way that vaccine effectiveness is handicapped? Sure, in theory, that could happen. Is there any evidence to suggest that it’s particularly likely in this case? Nope.
And it’s less likely still if more people get vaccinated because that reduces the probability of new variants developing in the first place. While no strain yet has proven too much for vaccines to resist, it would be best to avoid that possibility altogether. If nothing else, it would be nice to silence liberal talking heads who incessantly drone on about how each new variant will definitely be the one that brings civilization to its knees.
In all fairness, the delta variant of COVID-19 does appear to be substantially more infectious and slightly more severe than previous strains. This could lead to the rapid spread of the virus among the unvaccinated. Evidence from Scotland suggests that those afflicted with the delta variant are more likely to be hospitalized. In the interest of keeping infection rates low, vaccination is still the best bet.
So, ignore ABC, ignore variant alarmism, and get your vaccination.
