Unreal. Here’s the headline that went everywhere, this one below based on a Reuters story and headlined at U.S.News & World Report:
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube Pull Trump Posts Over Coronavirus Misinformation
The story begins:
“(Reuters) – Facebook Inc on Wednesday took down a post by U.S. President Donald Trump, which the company said violated its rules against sharing misinformation about the coronavirus.
The post contained a video clip, from an interview with Fox & Friends earlier in the day, in which Trump claimed that children are “almost immune” to COVID-19.
‘This video includes false claims that a group of people is immune from COVID-19, which is a violation of our policies around harmful COVID misinformation,’ a Facebook spokesman said.”
Notice anything? The President is directly quoted as saying children are “almost immune” to the virus. Yet the Facebook statement from their spokesman changes the Trump quote and says this:
“This video includes false claims that a group of people is immune from COVID-19…”
In other words, Facebook – not Trump – said, falsely, that he had said children were “immune” when in fact he said “almost immune.”
Let’s do the obvious. That would be: follow the science.
The BBC posted their version of this story, and deep into their report said this:
“How dangerous is coronavirus for children?
Children can catch and transmit the virus, but they run an extremely low risk of becoming ill from it.
Adults – and particularly older adults – are far more likely to be seriously ill and die from complications.
The largest study done so far, involving more than 55,000 hospital patients, found that only 0.8% were under the age of 19.
Half of all the people with confirmed coronavirus who were admitted to critical care units in England, Wales and Northern Ireland were 60 or older as of 31 July, according to a research charity.
A recent US study of coronavirus cases among 7,780 children from 26 countries found almost one in five patients had no symptoms. Another one in five developed lesions on their lungs during the infection.
Some 3.3% were admitted to intensive care units and seven deaths were reported, according to the research from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
A study from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine found that people under 20 were about half as susceptible to coronavirus infection as those over 20.
There have been some extremely rare cases of children developing an inflammatory syndrome similar to Kawasaki disease, and scientists are exploring a possible delayed iitter v. Trumpmmune response to coronavirus.”
Note that the BBC story makes a reference to research from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. When one follow the BBC link, one finds this headline from Science Daily:
Children more resilient against coronavirus, study reveals
Texas team reviews 131 studies of children from 26 countries
The BBC story also links to A study from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Follow that link and here is the headline:
Age-dependent effects in the transmission and control of COVID-19 epidemics
The study’s abstract begins with this footnoted sentence:
“The COVID-19 pandemic has shown a markedly low proportion of cases among children1,2,3,4.”
One could go on – and on.
But the central fact here is that President Trump’s saying that children are “almost immune” is factually true and backed up by science.
Facebook deliberately changed the President’s words. With Facebook and Twitter both literally denying science.
One can only wonder: Will Facebook and Twitter now pull the BBC off of its pages? How about the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio? Or The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine?
Probably not.
None of those three are Donald Trump.
