Item — HN Reader

I think it's fear mongering because it makes people worry whether grocery stores will be able to stay open. As somebody who lives in NYC, I can tell you right now, that if they didn't, it would cause a panic (right now my local grocer won't let people in without masks).

If a panic happened, this could lead people to things like looting. I think looting would be incredibly dangerous, more dangerous than the virus itself. Thus I find it borderline irresponsible to "stoke the fire" by writing an article like this without properly putting necessary disclaimers.

1 comments

And I suppose I don't consider it fear mongering because I use the term when someone in the media is saying "X is going to happen," while X is exceedingly unlikely to happen, and it is of negligible risk to their audience. I don't think that is the case with this article; there is no discussion of grocery shut down, but rather reporting the effect it has had on the workers, including poor treatment from management.

I am less concerned with panic. I think the greater danger now is people not taking Covid-19 seriously enough. Ironically, the not-wanting-to-cause-panic sentiment was what some grocery store management cited as a reason employees could not wear masks, as reported in the article.