According to the mainstream liberal media, the coronavirus pandemic is one of the greatest medical threats to humanity since the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918.  However, six months after the outbreak, the data on coronavirus cases and deaths in the United States tell a very different story.

For instance, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 94 percent of patients who have supposedly died from COVID-19 also had, on average, 2.6 comorbidities.

In other words, more than nine out of ten patients who supposedly died from COVID-19 had severe ailments that were at the very least contributing factors, and could have been the primary cause of death, regardless of the presence of COVID-19.

As the CDC notes, "[f]or 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned."

This report should have sent shock waves.  Had it been honestly reported, it should have caused many governors and mayors to rethink the devastating impacts of the lockdowns and other counterproductive policies they have kept in place months after the curve was flattened and hospitals were no longer in jeopardy of being overwhelmed.

However, it has been buried and disregarded by most in the mainstream liberal media because it does not support their claim that COVID-19 is the Grim Reaper incarnate.

As if the lack of reporting on this bombshell report is not enough to raise a few eyebrows, there is much more that the mainstream liberal media do not want the public to know about COVID-19.

For example, according to the most recent CDC report on COVID-19 deaths in the United States, broken down by age group, a total of 377 Americans under the age of 24 have died from the coronavirus.  That is significantly less than the number of Americans in that age group who have died from several other diseases or other factors (such as car crashes) during the same period.

As the report shows, the higher up the age bracket, the more likely one is to have died from coronavirus.  For example, 1,360 Americans in the 25–34 age range have died from COVID-19.  On the highest end, for those 85 years and older, 54,838 Americans have died from coronavirus.

So why are the media in all-out hyperventilation mode about the risk of COVID-19 for all students, including those in higher education, when these individuals are practically invulnerable to the virus?

Another aspect of COVID-19 that the mainstream liberal media are reluctant to report on is the prevalence of obesity among those who have supposedly died from COVID-19.  Although more and more reports are linking obesity, especially severe and morbid obesity, to those who have died from COVID-19, the mainstream liberal media are practically silent on this huge discovery.

Reports in esteemed medical journals such as The Lancet and Annals of Internal Medicine show that "[s]evere obesity puts those with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) at particularly high risk of death, more so than related risk factors such as diabetes or hypertension."

As someone who monitors the news like a hawk, including the mainstream liberal media, I have barely heard a peep about the high correlation between obesity and adverse outcomes for those who contract coronavirus.

On the other hand, I can assure that the media have gone well out of their way to report that COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on minority groups.  Could it be that minority groups have higher rates of obesity?  Could it also be that minority groups have higher rates of diabetes and smoking?

Yes, this is indeed the case, even though the mainstream liberal media would rather have you think COVID-19 is somehow "racist" and attacks minorities in higher numbers through no fault of their own.

We are living in a very dangerous period — not because of COVID-19, but because the mainstream liberal media are lying about the reality of the coronavirus.  Their lies have caused people to panic and have enabled politicians who are using the COVID-19 pandemic for political ends.

The mainstream liberal media have shirked their solemn duty as the purveyors of truth.  Put more bluntly, the media are not reporting the facts, while going out of their way to fuel needless fear-mongering.

This should scare the vast majority of Americans, especially as the media (with a few noteworthy exceptions) become more and more monolithic every day.  Without a free and fair press, the American experiment is all but doomed.

Chris Talgo (ctalgo@heartland.org) is an editor at The Heartland Institute.

Image: Pixabay.