Because of social media, ubiquity of video/cellphones, etc., we're accustomed to thinking we see everything these days. We don't. And what we're *not* seeing has shaped the covid-19 debates far more than what we *have* seen. That needs to be discussed far more than it has. (1/5)

We're not seeing the grim, frightening, even disgusting toll of this wretched virus as presented in hospitals where thousands of Americans die daily. Imagine how different the mask debates would look if such video were ubiquitous & easily accessed (2/5)

There're privacy rules, etc. preventing such images. But the bigger issue is that we *don't* want to see these images. They're no doubt horrific & sickening. But that means classic gatekeeping in the media is working. The images no doubt exist, they're just not distributed. (3/5)

It's reminiscent of Vietnam combat footage. TV producers used a "queasy quotient" to decide what viewers could handle at dinner time. Chopping the ear off a corpse? Legs blown off? They were conscientious, but tried to show as much as possible to make human toll real. (4/5)

They wanted to show as much as they could because American GIs were suffering. I'm not sure the same sense of responsibility exists these days; the default seems to be *don't* rather than *do*- we've not seen the reality of covid-19 because someone thinks we can't handle it (5/5)