Despite writing “shame me if you must,” a New York Times columnist has watered down a piece about his decision to travel to see family at Thanksgiving after fierce backlash. In the column, Times opinion writer Farhard Manjoo assesses his risk of exposing family members to COVID-19 and finds it to be larger than expected. Despite his own findings and the advice of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention not to travel for Thanksgiving, Manjoo concluded the original column with, “Even after mapping my bubble, the question of whether or not to go feels, in the end, like a gut call, ruled more by emotion than empirical data. So shame me if you must, but my wife and I decided that we would travel for Thanksgiving, though with a few added measures for safety.” According to screenshots shared on Twitter, after the publication of the article and outraged tweets about how disregarding the science and publicizing the decision was irresponsible, Manjoo and his editors then added paragraphs to the column attempting to emphasize the safety measures he and his family would take. “I get everyone’s criticism and I am reading it / absorbing it,” Manjoo wrote on Twitter.
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