Thread by @Coyoteblog

Well it appears that the @washingtonpost is really pulling out the stops to stoke the virus panic.

washingtonpost.com/health/2020/11…

I remember XKCD once mocked the fact that heat maps of certain phenomena always seemed to be just population density maps

Now the WaPo has used the same principle and flipped it on its head

Had they picked LA County, the colored area would be just 1/40th of the area of that one county. This is stupid scaremongering attempting perhaps to take advantage of the fact that coastal folks have never been in flyover country and don't know anything about it

Another way to look at it is that 250,000 is 1/10 the deaths the US gets in every other typical year, over a half of which occurred in populations whose life expectancy was, without the virus, measured in months

By this same county-area logic, Barrack Obama got his ass kicked in 2012

I have made my own alternative to the @washingtonpost map that is equally valid. Consider the editorial rationale for using one over the other, and stop telling me the media isn't purposely trying to scare us.

(admittedly a little hard to see, zoom in and look towards the lower left)