Omicron wave prompts media to rethink which data to report

Posted Thursday, January 13, 2022 10:23 am

The Associated Press has recently told its editors and reporters to avoid emphasizing case counts in stories about the disease. That means, for example, no more stories focused solely on a particular country or state setting a one-day record for number of cases, because that claim has become unreliable.

David Bauder | The Associated Press

For two years, coronavirus case counts and hospitalizations have been widely used barometers of the pandemic’s march across the world.

But the omicron wave is making a mess of the usual statistics, forcing news organizations to rethink the way they report such figures.

“It’s just a data disaster,” said Katherine Wu, staff writer who covers COVID-19 for The Atlantic magazine.

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Omicron wave prompts media to rethink which data to report

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