I Was Traumatized by a Story I Read on Medium

It turns out it wasn’t even true.

Photo by Engin Akyurt for Pexels

I think most writers on this platform would like to have more readers. But some writers are willing to sacrifice their reputation (if they have one) to gain readers.

Recently, I was reading an article written by a very popular writer. It was about COVID.

I care about COVID. I haven’t had it yet, that I know of, and I am really trying to avoid getting it.

So, I had planned to go out and run some errands, go to Target, McDonald’s for a large mocha frappe, and stuff like that. Shortly before I was about to leave for my errands, I read this writer’s article about COVID on Medium. The information contained in it scared the shit out of me.

I forwarded the story to my sister for her to read. And then I called her to find out what she thought.

During our call, I told my sister I was so concerned about what I had read in the article, specifically a chart that had statistics in it, that I didn’t know if I would leave home to run my errands now. Based on what I had read, despite being one of the few people still wearing masks in public, I was now afraid to go out in public.

My sister asked me if I had read the chart of statistics in the story. I said I had. She then asked me if I had read the small print. I had not. I was reading on my phone, and even though I was wearing my readers, I couldn’t make out what the fine print said.

Well, my sister recently had eye surgery, and she read the fine print to me. It said that the information in the chart was not scientific, a proper sample wasn’t taken, and other stuff which amounted to the “statistics” contained in this article being a bunch of unreliable bullshit.

I was shocked.

Then I listened to my sister talk about how this writer’s story about COVID affected her.

My sister is meticulous about not catching COVID, especially since she is immunocompromised. She hasn’t had it yet either (that she knows of). Like me, she continues to mask up when out in public.

She told me that reading this story was the tipping point for her. She said she felt so helpless and hopeless that she felt…