Doctors who treat Covid describe the ways the illness has gotten milder and shifted over time to mostly affect the upper respiratory tract.

Doctors say they’re finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish Covid from allergies or the common cold, even as hospitalizations tick up.

The illness’ past hallmarks, such as a dry cough or the loss of sense of taste or smell, have become less common. Instead, doctors are observing milder disease, mostly concentrated in the upper respiratory tract.

“It isn’t the same typical symptoms that we were seeing before. It’s a lot of congestion, sometimes sneezing, usually a mild sore throat,” said Dr. Erick Eiting, vice chair of operations for emergency medicine at Mount Sinai Downtown in New York City.

The sore throat usually arrives first, he said, then congestion.

  • Stuka@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    78
    arrow-down
    6
    ·
    1 year ago

    Just because an individual case doesn’t fit the trend does not automatically make the news propaganda.

    • darq@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      20
      arrow-down
      46
      ·
      1 year ago

      This article is a bit of propaganda though. That doesn’t mean it isn’t true or anything. But running an article in the news about how much milder the disease is, is still going to have an effect on how people respond to it.

      • Stuka@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        29
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        I think you might be using too broad a definition of propaganda. The result of influencing opinion does not make something propaganda. Propaganda needs some intent to persuade or push an agenda.

        The article might be propaganda, largely that depends on the motivations for writing and publishing it. But the fact that the content of the article might change people’s opinions does not make it propaganda.

        • darq@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          8
          arrow-down
          36
          ·
          1 year ago

          I think you might be using too broad a definition of propaganda.

          Nah.

          The result of influencing opinion does not make something propaganda. Propaganda needs some intent to persuade or push an agenda.

          A bar this article very easily clears. What to publish is a choice. A choice was made to publish this article, with obvious influence on opinion and action.

          The article might be propaganda, largely that depends on the motivations for writing and publishing it. But the fact that the content of the article might change people’s opinions does not make it propaganda.

          Nah. Intent a nonsense metric. We can bicker forever about intent. Because we cannot know anyone’s mind.

          Using intent as a metric gives a lot of propaganda a free pass. Because we can’t prove intent.

            • darq@kbin.social
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              arrow-down
              19
              ·
              1 year ago

              I didn’t say it did? I didn’t even say that propaganda is universally bad?

              • cloaker@kbin.social
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                10
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                1 year ago

                Sure, but propaganda has to have intent. The article itself cannot be propaganda without it. It may advance a claim of COVID being trivial, but those who advance it must bend the article in some way. What they say then is the propaganda.

                • darq@kbin.social
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  arrow-down
                  20
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  The choice of what to publish at all, is intent. News outlets are not just firehoses of all facts. They choose what to publish.

                  There is no need for the article to be “bent” in any way.

                  • Stuka@lemmy.ml
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    12
                    ·
                    1 year ago

                    So to you propaganda is a synonym for news, and that is simply incorrect.

                  • SheeEttin@lemmy.world
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    7
                    ·
                    1 year ago

                    So your own comments here are propaganda? If everything published by choice is propaganda, then everything is propaganda, because everything is published by choice. Nobody just dumps a bunch of rocks on the keyboard and publishes whatever it types out.