RUSH: From Franklin Templeton here, another research study on what the American people think of the COVID-19 virus. Remember there was a market research firm Kekst, K-e-k-s-t. I never heard of them before this. But they do market research for Fortune 500 companies — kind of like a McKinsey group, in a way. They’re consultants.
They find a way to find Fortune 500 companies to separate themselves from their money, and they did market research indicating that the average American believes 30 million people have died from coronavirus — 9% of the population! Why does anybody think that? Well, hello Drive-By Media. The Drive-By Media has not been able to contain themselves in the past… By the way, folks, have you noticed that the stories reporting on these new massive numbers of cases have vanished?
They’re gone.
They’re just gone.
We went through a month of every day telling us how many new cases, record number of cases, highest number of cases since March. They kept going on and on about it, and they wanted you to believe that cases equaled deaths. Now you can’t find any news. The COVID-19 story is essentially over. They succeeded in shutting down most of sports. They have shut down California and New York.
They’ve shut down New York City and Los Angeles and San Francisco. The fact of the matter is Florida was supposedly a state (sniveling) “being devastated. It was just being destroyed. Oh, it’s horrible what’s happening. Governor DeSantis is so incompetent.” Guess what? The number of new cases of COVID-19 in Florida is way, way down.
It’s a gigantic success story for Ron DeSantis for not caving, and all these governors — the governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp. Alex Berenson — who’s the former New York Times reporter who has been a lone voice of sanity on this — has a story about Florida and it’s worth pointing out. Have you noticed that the story of rising cases in Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, Texas, they’ve disappeared from the news?
And they’ve disappeared from the news because it isn’t a story anymore. And Berenson says, “Congratulations to @GovRonDeSantis for following the science, standing up to the media, and refusing to devastate your state’s economy with a lockdown not just in May and June (when it was easy) but for the last six weeks (when refusing to give in took real guts),” and, believe me, it did. The pressure that the…
We live here. We see it. The pressure that the local South Florida media, the national media was dumping on DeSantis to lock down the state again — at least lock down South Florida — was immense. He resisted. Mr. Berenson says, “Next question: how long before @miamiherald @pbpost and the rest of the Florida media — to say nothing of @nytimes @cnn and the A-listers of Team Apocalypse — admit the truth?”
Florida is reporting the lowest number of cases since mid-June: 2,760. We’re on the way down. People are starting to talk about herd immunity in New York now with the number of cases there. I mean, it’s been devastating — and the number of seasoned citizens that died at the hand of Andrew Cuomo with over the moon, over the top, but still, there are stories that you can find: Has herd immunity taken hold in New York?
‘Cause the number of new cases is microscopically small. Now, here’s the story from Franklin Templeton. “On average, Americans believe that people 55 and older account for just over half of the total of COVID-19 deaths. The actual figure is 92%.” So 92% of COVID-19 deaths have occurred in people over the age of 55. “Americans believe that people 44 and younger account for 30% of total deaths. The actual figure is 2.7%.”
That’s a huge disparity. Why do Americans believe this BS? Because this is what they think the media’s telling them. As the media reports case numbers and then with a full-fledged panic over the case number, that must mean it’s the number of people that are gonna day, Mabel! “Americans overestimate the risk of death from COVID-19 for people aged 24 and younger by a factor of 50.”
They think the risk for people 65 and older is half of what it actually is. It’s 40% versus 80%. So the vulnerable group is 55 and older. For people 44 and younger, the death rate is 2.7%. The American people think it’s 30% in this research survey. It’s a classic, classic example of how the Drive-By Media seemingly so easily distorts and misinforms people on the basics.