California is currently the state with some of the worst coronavirus numbers. 

The state reported a grim new record: The number of daily deaths from the virus rose to 157. The previous high, 149, was seen on July 12.

That means the total number of COVID-related deaths in the state has now topped 8,000, with 8,027.

The state also saw a massive 12,040 new COVID infections in the prior 24 hours. That’s just below the record, set on Wednesday, Newsom which was 12,807 new cases. Newsom said this total was “the highest in the nation.”

Also on Wednesday, California had the unwanted distinction of surpassing New York as the state with the most COVID-19 infections. California’s 413,576 confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped the 408,886 seen in New York State as of Wednesday.

I’m not going to get into the weeds of these numbers and the way that Wuhan Virus cases are counted in general. The numbers that the media is using position California as having a worse crisis than any of the red states, especially Florida, that the media has been hounding. And yet the way that the media covers the pandemic in California and Florida or Texas is dramatically different.

If having a large caseload is evidence of a failure of governance, a position that the media takes in red or reddish states like Florida, then why has the coverage of Governor Newsom’s actions been so totally uncritical. And considering the epicenter in Los Angeles County, can’t the media find any policies by government officials to criticize? Surprisingly they can’t. Yet the same media that gives Newsom a pass has been frantically hammering DeSantis. But you know they’re following the science. The political science.

If we had anything resembling honest and objective coverage of this crisis, it would begin with an admission that there’s still a lot we don’t know and that different parts of the country may be seeing spikes at different times. This artificial wartime narrative in politicians get praised for getting the virus under control (at least if they’re the governors of blue states where the virus wiped out enough of the elderly and vulnerable nursing home populations) while red state governors get blasted for not getting it under control is fake. And that’s even without taking issue with the reporting methodology or any of the deeper criticisms of the tallies.

What we’ve seen more strongly suggests that the virus is not especially controllable. That it burns through vulnerable populations, infecting many people with limited effect, but severely crippling and killing some groups, some for reasons we understand (the elderly, people with breathing problems) and others we don’t (some minorities, men), and that the measures that governments have adapted to stop the spread aren’t working because they’re based on a premise about controlling the spread that doesn’t work.

But that’s not the desired narrative. 

The media needs to use the virus to boost the political standing of Democrats and weaken those of Republicans, and polls suggest that it’s working. The public is consuming media content at an unprecedented rate and is accepting at least some of the propaganda. That includes believing that Cuomo and Newsom are heroes, even while pretending that New York and California are doing great.