NY Times Recants – Overstated Children Hospitalized With COVID by 800,000

The New York Times issued a massive correction Thursday after the liberal newspaper severely misreported the number of COVID hospitalities among children in the United States by more than 800,000.

A report headlined “A New Vaccine Strategy for Children: Just One Dose, for Now,” by science and health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli, was peppered with errors before major changes were made to the story. The Times initially reported “nearly 900,000 children have been hospitalized” with COVID since the pandemic began, when the factual data in the now-corrected version is that “more than 63,000 children were hospitalized with Covid-19 from August 2020 to October 2021.” [Inflating the number by a mere 1400%.]

The paper also botched actions taken by regulators in Sweden and Denmark and even bungled the timing of a critical FDA meeting.

“An earlier version of this article incorrectly described actions taken by regulators in Sweden and Denmark. They have halted use of the Moderna vaccine in children; they have not begun offering single doses. The article also misstated the number of Covid hospitalizations in U.S. children. It is more than 63,000 from August 2020 to October 2021, not 900,000 since the beginning of the pandemic. In addition, the article misstated the timing of an F.D.A. meeting on authorization of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children. It is later this month, not next week,” the lengthy correction stated in full.

Journalist Jeryl Bier asked, “How did an error that large happen, @NYTimes?”

Columnist Phil Kerpen sarcastically said the Times reporter was “meeting her usual standards” with the inaccurate report.

I see this NYT reporter is meeting her usual standards today. pic.twitter.com/zZ3OV348PU

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) October 8, 2021

Journalist Glenn Greenwald mocked the paper, too.

NYT had an outstanding, highly experienced COVID reporter, but was fired because he made very rich teenagers unhappy when forced to entertain them on a paid trip.

Now we have an incompetent in his place constantly doing this, or saying it's racist to investigate COVID origins: https://t.co/iGoCvgP9Jx

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 8, 2021

“NYT had an outstanding, highly experienced COVID reporter, but was fired because he made very rich teenagers unhappy when forced to entertain them on a paid trip,” he wrote, referring to Donald McNeil Jr., who was forced to step down earlier this year.

“Now we have an incompetent in his place constantly doing this, or saying it’s racist to investigate COVID origins,” Greenwald added, referring to when Mandavilli said the coronavirus “lab-leak” theory had “racist roots.”

Many observers also mocked the paper for printing that Mandavilli “is the 2019 winner of the Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Reporting” directly below the correction.

Rutgers University professor Richard H. Ebright feels the prize is “awarded to the dimmest candles on the science stenographer cake.”

Source: FOX