The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Ample blame to go around in teen’s COVID-19 death

- Leonard Pitts Jr. He writes for the Miami Herald.

A few words on the death of Carsyn Leigh Davis.

It has become predictabl­e that the political right always knows whom to blame for disaster. After the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, Donald Trump blamed video games. After the earthquake in Haiti, Pat Robertson blamed a pact with the devil. After the 2001 terrorist attacks, the late Jerry Falwell Sr. blamed abortion, feminists and the ACLU.

But if any prominent conservati­ve has assigned blame for Carsyn’s death, it has escaped notice. Which is unfortunat­e. Because while the lines of causality they’ve drawn in previous tragedies seemed fanciful at best, the lines leading to this one are clear and easily read.

Carsyn was a teenager from Fort Myers, Florida, who had battled health issues all her life, including cancer and a rare autoimmune disorder. Then she contracted COVID-19. This, after an event at her church.

“Service is back and better than ever!” crowed the church on social media. They billed it as a “release party.” In the blog post that brought Carsyn’s death to widespread attention, Rebekah Jones, a Florida data scientist, called it a “COVID party.” She posted a screen grab of a social media post by Carsyn’s mother, Carole, promoting a website: dontmaskou­rkids.com. For the record: Jones was fired by the state in May for, she says, refusing to make changes to coronaviru­s data to suggest Florida was doing better than it was. She has since been keeping track on her own.

A hundred kids, unmasked, attended the June 10 church party. Afterward, says Jones, Carole, “who is not a doctor,” gave Carsyn a precaution­ary dose of azithromyc­in, “an anti-bacterial drug with no known benefits for fighting COVID-19.”

But Carsyn got sick: headaches, sinus pressure, a cough. Carole put her on her grandfathe­r’s oxygen machine. And she gave her hydroxychl­oroquine, the drug Trump touted as a possible cure, but that actual doctors say is dangerous.

Finally, Carole took her daughter to the hospital. By then, Carsyn couldn’t breathe, but for several days, Carole refused to allow a breathing tube to be inserted. Carsyn died June 23 — two days after her 17th birthday.

And if no one else wants to assign blame, yours truly is not reticent.

Blame the church. You don’t hold a party in a pandemic.

Blame the parents. They failed their daughter.

But you must also blame the forces of conspiracy and confusion that invite people to ignore medical science and common sense.

Blame Tucker Carlson, Rush Limbaugh and every other loudmouth peddling alternativ­es to reality and forgeries of fact.

Blame Donald Trump, Roger Stone and every other political hack who thrives on the gullibilit­y of the ill-informed.

Blame social media for allowing dangerous propaganda to be spread anonymousl­y and globally with no accountabi­lity.

And blame traditiona­l news media. We heirs of Murrow, Cronkite, Woodward and Bernstein are so enthralled by false equivalenc­e in the name of a spurious “objectivit­y” that we require policy memos and special dispensati­on to call the obvious lie an obvious lie. By such actions and inactions, America manufactur­es ignorance on an industrial scale.

Carsyn Leigh Davis is dead.

And there is plenty of blame to go around.

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