The Costs of Selling Covid Fear

James Surowiecki: “When the CDC changed its guidance on masking earlier this week — recommending, among other things, that even vaccinated people start wearing masks in indoor public spaces in areas of substantial to high Covid transmission — it cited ‘unpublished data’ as a reason for its decision.”

“The next day, the internal CDC document that seems to have prompted the shift was published — by the Washington Post. And when major news media got a look at, the message they sent vaccinated people was pretty simple: ‘Panic!’”

“This reaction was not justified by the actual data in the CDC document.”