HERE COMES THE NEW COVID SCARE: The Hill, one of the most reliable weathervanes of the Establishment Media’s evolving narratives, looks to be taking up the latest COVID fear-mongering.
They’ve got a scary new name for the alleged latest variant, the XBB.1.5 and the panicky headline: “What We Know About the XBB.1.5 COVID Variant Sweeping the Northeast.” Reports The Hill’s Joseph Choi:
“The XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant is raising concerns of a potential surge in COVID-19 cases as it sweeps across the Northeast. Officials have warned in recent weeks that the strain is highly transmissible, can more easily evade the immunity offered by vaccines or prior infections than past variants — and is likely to drive cases up around the country.”
One thing you might note in the story – the absence of actual case data. Nowhere does Choi quote the latest CDC case data, perhaps because as of December 31, 2022, there were only 5,522 new cases and the seven-day weekly average was 52,879, down from the 87,414 on September 1, 2022, and way down from the 700,000+ average in January 2022.