My list of useless terms used by news editors

August 13, 2021. Most of these terms are used, mis-used, abused and offered only as inflammatory rhetoric when data in an accurate context would be much more valuable. These words should be banned or at least used sparingly in writing headlines; use of these terms indicates clickbait, exaggeration and fear mongering rather than insightful reporting.

• overwhelmed (as in a hospital -- or hospitals -- being overwhelmed)

• surge, as in "Surge in cases..."

• spike, as in "We have seen a spike in cases...

• skyrocket, as in "the numbers will skyrocket"

• case (vis a vis a symptomatic case, or a positive PCR test, or an amplified PCR test, or an asymptomatic case

• Covid deaths, when the better explanation would be "death with Covid"

• co-morbidities (rather than 'alternative causes of death'). In many cases, judicious use of the term can better explain how over 90% of "Covid" deaths had alternative, underlying, pre-existing possible explanations for death, e.g, age over 80, BMI > 30, diabetes, dementia, chronic lung disease. These are NOT caused by Covid.

• expert, not without offering data or evidence beyond the opinion of the expert, along with establishing the qualifications of the 'expert,' and not just a degree or title.

• excess deaths, not without an explanation of now the 'baseline' of deaths has been established, and not simply using the average from the past five years of death as the baseline.

• life expectancy, not without explaining that this is an estimate of the likely age of a person born in that year and NOT the life expectancy of a 65-year old. In truth, the 65-year old in America has a fifty-fifty chance of reaching the age of 100.