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Comment by akie | Hacker News Reader

What is it with so many people being so dismissive of such reports? You think he's just lying, that he just wants to mislead us, or what?

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There is so much misinformation out there about this situation, I think skepticism of any report is not an unreasonable position. The Italian media has been criticised for drumming up panic.

The health system is completely overloaded and unable to deal with this (1). And that's in a health system that was rated as one of the best in the world (2).

(1) Article in German, shared by Germany's top virologist (1b), the guy who literally developed the test for the corona virus https://www.tagesspiegel.de/gesellschaft/panorama/aus-dem-co...

(1b) https://twitter.com/c_drosten/status/1237650201323737088

(2) many sources, but see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization_rank...

We just have to be careful with the information we use and the conclusions we draw from them.

From all we know, the mortality correlates with age. Only few deads younger than 50 were reported and we don't know what other diseases they suffered from.

I personally wouldn't use TV as a source of information in this regard but that's a personal preference.

> I personally wouldn't use TV as a source of information in this regard but that's a personal preference.

What are you using as a source of information?

Well, I currently find cough twitter quite informative. But I'd rather listen to epidemiologists and virologists. I'd also prefer a good weekly magazine, radio station or podcast because there people have more time/space to elaborate on their point of view. In TV, with very few exceptions, everything is crammed into very small portions that leave no room for critical discussion/appraisal.

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