If this sounds familiar that’s because it is. Just last week the CDC also falsely claimed publicly that Florida’s COVID-19 infection rate had skyrocketed with nearly 135,000 new infections making the “Sunshine State” the leading state within the country with 20% of all new cases.
However within 24 hours the CDC was forced to admit they were wrong; someone at the health agency “mistakenly” combined MULTIPLE days into one.
We now have a media outlet also attempting to clean-up their public “miscalculation” falsely claiming that 5,800 children were hospitalized in Texas with COVID-19.
Texas Tribune erroneously reports 5,800 children were hospitalized due COVID in first week of Augusthttps://t.co/vdSwoP8acY pic.twitter.com/p2droDvMF6
— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 13, 2021
In an article published by the Texas Tribune on Thursday the paper claimed that state officials were under a great deal of stress attempting to stop the spread of the deadly disease. The paper also claimed that health officials were dealing with a sudden outbreak of the Syncytial virus (RSV) which primarily attacks young children aged 5 and under.
The article went on to claim that 5,800 children had to be hospitalized in the course of just 1-week; however those astronomical numbers were false. In actuality those numbers and the length of time was actually 783 cases over a two month period from July 1st through August 9th.
Perhaps I’m being a bit cautious in that coincidentally both the “Sunshine State” and the “Lone Star State” are proud “Red States” where individual liberties are still respected by two outstanding governors.
As for The Texas Tribune, the paper is a leftist publication located in Austin, Texas and bills itself as a “non-profit news organization covering politics and policy in Texas.”
It also has (from my perspective) some incredibly sloppy journalists who apparently don’t do much investigative reporting in that their false exposé caused widespread panic and damage to the reputation of the state.
Their misleading article began with a sensational headline, “Texas children and children’s hospitals are under siege from two viruses: RSV and COVID-19.”
Texas children and children's hospitals are under siege from two viruses: RSV and COVID-19 https://t.co/Y2dN4WR4f9 via @chron
— Brittany Zucker (@brittanyzucker) August 14, 2021
Followed by a false subhead that read; “More children are being treated in Texas hospitals for COVID-19 than ever before, and an unseasonable outbreak of respiratory syncytial virus is adding to the stress on children’s hospitals.”
However, within hours red faced founder John Thornton was forced to print a retraction
Correction, Aug. 12, 2021: “An earlier version of this story overstated the number of children who have been hospitalized in Texas recently with COVID-19. The story said over 5,800 children had been hospitalized during a seven-day period in August, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That number correctly referred to children hospitalized with COVID-19 since the pandemic began. In actuality, 783 children were admitted to Texas hospitals with COVID-19 between July 1 and Aug. 9 of this year.”
The article also suggested that Governor Abbott’s lifting of the state’s mask mandate somehow contributed to the outbreak of the RSV virus in Texas. There is no scientific proof to back up the publications claim. The publication also uses a number of suppositions concerning the virus in their obvious attempt to damage Governor Abbott.
“During the last year, RSV was largely dormant, which experts believe was due to people masking up during the pandemic. Now, in just the last several weeks, thousands of Texas children have tested positive for the virus,” the article contends.
Also worth noting, for the thousandth time, children are at more risk from the flu than COVID. This hard fact has been available to us for over a year, and yet Democrats keep advocating for our children to suffer through school closures and mask mandates.
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) August 12, 2021
Adding, “In addition, the delta variant of COVID-19 appears to affect unvaccinated children more often than previous variants. It’s unclear if children are also becoming sicker from it than from other variants of COVID-19.”
It would be interesting to find out exactly where the source of this false story originated or whether it was created by The Texas Tribune.
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