Did the Times Print an Urban Legend?

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
The story has real didactic power in the current environment, illustrating perhaps four points of contention:

1) A young person

2) in a red state

3) believed the virus was a hoax

4) and failed to socially distance.

As a result, he’s dead.

The original sub-headline was: “I thought this was a hoax,” the man told his nurse, a hospital official said.

It’s a morality tale, really. Don’t believe it’s a hoax! Or that you aren’t at risk because you are young! Maybe don’t live in a bad red state where they aren’t taking COVID seriously, or go to these parties. The only thing missing was a MAGA hat and a rueful dying admission, “I shouldn’t have trusted Trump or my Republican governor!”

But, as I read the story originally earlier this week, I realized the details didn’t quite add up. If you believe COVID is a hoax, why would you attend a “Covid Party?” And, in a pandemic for an airborne disease, aren’t all parties potentially COVID parties? Chicken pox parties were aimed at spreading a local infection purposely to younger children who have milder cases. People don’t hold them because they are skeptics. Something doesn’t make sense.

A closer look showed that not only were there no names named, but there was no date or location of the party and no other sources about where and whether it happened. And then there was the curious fact that a dying man’s self-incriminating final words were relayed to the press. Who gave permission for that?

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/did-the-times-print-an-urban-legend/
 
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