Roommates, as everyone continues to fear the deadly coronavirus outbreak that has spread worldwide and claimed the lives of 14 people in the U.S., Dr. Drew Pinsky wants the media to stop reporting on the health crisis with fear. In a recent interview, Dr. Drew slammed media outlets covering the virus in a way that incites further panic and hysteria—and he is “furious” about it.
The coronavirus outbreak has continuously dominated news headlines for the last few weeks and Dr. Drew has had enough. No, he’s not upset at the general information given to the public about the virus, but he is upset at the way it’s being reported.
In a recent sit-down interview with “Daily Blast Live,” Dr. Drew didn’t hold back his feelings on how the media is creating unnecessary fear and panic in everyone because they are reporting on the outbreak in an irresponsible way.
Dr. Drew had this to say:
“We are not overreacting; the press is overreacting, and it makes me furious. The press should not be reporting medical stories as though they know how to report it. If we have a pandemic, I won’t know how to tell that we’re actually having a pandemic because everything is an emergency. People that are infectious disease specialists, the CDC, the epidemiologist[s], need to take this very seriously. The press needs to shut up because you’re more likely to die of influenza right now.”
He continued, adding a bit more insight to his opinions:
“Let me frame it this way: we have in the United States 24 million cases of flu-like illness, 180,000 hospitalizations, 16,000 dead from influenza. Why is that not being reported? Why isn’t the message: get your flu shot? We have zero deaths from coronavirus, we have almost no cases. It’s coming here. That community transmitted case you purported on from UC Davis, that means that it’s far milder than we know it is and there are people walking around out there with the virus that don’t even know they have it, it’s so mild. So, it’s going to be much more widespread than we knew, it’s going to be much milder than we knew, the 1.7 % fatality rate is going to fall.”
Meanwhile, there have reportedly been more people who contracted the virus that have recovered within the last few days and China (where coronavirus originated) has seen sickness and death rates drop significantly since January.
Roommates, what are your thoughts on this?
