I wonder if the Mayor of New Orleans has the internet?
Since you mentioned Mardi Gras... This is certainly an ironic tale, excerpted from a BBC account by Aleem Maqbool detailing the strange saga of Pastor Spradlin...
So 66 yr old Pastor Spradlin from Va travels to Mardi Gras every year, mainly to take advantage of the throng of humanity (and potential converts) gathered there...
This year he and his wife drove to NOLA, met up with 2 of their daughters, and together they played jazz as a family band in Jackson Square during the height of celebrations...One of the daughters recalled that they never gave a thought to the virus, it just never came up... The Pastor carried on his normal MG routine, visiting dives, clubs, and bars and preaching to anyone willing to listen...
At one point Pastor Spradlin became ill, but he tested negative for the virus. Since Pastor Spradlin was a Trump supporter he gravitated towards the belief that the virus was being overblown, and was an attempt by the media to "get Trump".
"Pastor Spradlin was one of those who became ill but tested negative for COVID-19. Even as he was sick, he posted on social media about "hysteria" surrounding the virus.
On the 13th of March Pastor Spradlin shared on Facebook a misleading post comparing swine flu and coronavirus deaths.
It suggested that Barack Obama and Donald Trump respectively had been treated very differently by the media and that it was a politically motivated ploy to harm President Trump."
The Pastor's son described conversations he and his dad had on the subject...
"Pastor Spradlin's son, Landon Isaac, 32, told me that he and his father had talked and agreed about what they felt was an irrational frenzy and fear-mongering about the virus, perhaps because it was an election year.
"I want to say outright though, dad didn't think it was a hoax, he knew it was a real virus," says Landon Isaac.
"But he did put up that post because he was frustrated that the media was propagating fear as the main mode of communication," he told me."
About a week later, Pastor Spradlin's health took a turn for the worse, so he and his wife decided to head back to Va. They never made it, as his condition deteriorated in NC. He had to be hospitalized with pneumonia in both lungs. And at this point he also tested POSITIVE for COVID-19. He ended up in the ICU and within 8 days he had died...
Ironically his family seems to be inclined to blame the "media" for the Pastor's reluctance to take the virus seriously.
His wife says that she "was frustrated with the way that the media was very agenda-driven - and it's on both sides. I feel like the coronavirus issue turned into something that was 'party against party' instead of one nation under God," she says.
His daughter said that the longstanding polarisation of the American media made it hard to know what to believe and what is political hype." She said that "mixed signals" and an inability to "trust the media" contributed to Pastor Spradlin's "confusion" about the virus...
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...di-gras-hysteria-north-carolina-a9449631.html
While I wish the Pastor and his family no ill will, the idea that the media is "irrationally fear-mongering" is either something they originated themselves or an advocated position that they willingly decided to adopt. Doesn't make a great deal of sense to me to assign ulterior motives to"the media" and then blame that very perception for YOUR inability to believe the facts the media has presented...
