Media coverage of the virus

[Mark Hancock]

Might be worth reading point 7
https://www.nhs.uk/oneyou/every-mind-matters/coronavirus-covid-19-staying-at-home-tips/

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Southfront is not reliable. Some daft stuff on there.

I think the trouble with assuming that all news sources are lying or corrupt you end up going to another extreme and reliying on highly biased crack pot stuff.

Wow! That was quick! I was waiting for the fact checkers to jump in and rubbish my rather staid picks. Either everything the UK mainstream media tells you is 100% true, or it isn't. If it isn't, there must be other opportunities to find it. It's up to you to sort the wheat from the chaff, but most UK news outlets are very, very much chaff.

There's a middle ground. It isn't a case of 100% true or it is all lies. A balanced view of what you read and listen to is possible.

Read Craig Murray's reporting from the court during the Assange hearings to find out how cleverly the system manipulates by selectively telling the truth. It's not lying, as such...but it certainly isn't telling the truth. All western reporting has this huge bias, geared toward the establishment keeping on being the establishment. Here's today's post: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives ... ion-today/

I quite agree that everything you find in dubious places on the internet is not necessarily the truth, but neither is everything you find on the BBC. The BBC are convinced that The White Helmets are heroic giants, saving poor, oppressed Syrians from the evil Assad regime. The other side of the coin has it that The White Helmets are just the propaganda arm of ISIS, and are as culpable as the terrorists are (and there is plenty of photographic evidence to suggest that there is little to separate White Helmet "volunteers" and active terrorists/rebel fighters - call them what you will). Without going to Syria, who do you believe?

 

[Cheshirechappie]

I too have distinct qualms about much media coverage of almost anything these days. Too much air-time (or paper) to fill is a problem already mentioned, but I think there's something else worth a thought.

Most 'media' people come from the same background - university humanities degrees - and make a full career out of journalism (in the broader sense of the word). Not many people enter journalism from a career elsewhere, or leave it to earn a living elsewhere (except perhaps as writers). Consequently, they all move in the same social and professional circles, and inevitably develop something of a herd mentality.

They all, with a few honourable exceptions, tend to have the same outlook on life, the same worldview. Thus, their idea of what the news is may not correspond exactly with what it really is. They tend, because of their worldview, to see events the same way. That way may not be how the people actually involved or affected see it. For example, news coverage of the current US president, which is universally, unremittingly, negative. Contrast that with the president's approval ratings from the US public, which are not that bad, and certainly not as dire as media coverage might lead you to expect. The media is purveying a narrative that may not accord with the actual situation. The same is true of other matters, too.

To gain a broader view, it does help to rummage further than the MSM, and the internet does help. Of course, there's a lot of dross on the 'net too, so one does need to think for oneself.

 

[Lonsdale73]

"Whoever controls the media, controls the mind." - Jim Morrison

Although it metamorphed into something completely different, the now deleted BBC Rant was calling out the serious drop in standards prevalent at the BBC. They neither have nor want proper journalists who might actually look into things the BBC themselves want to hide, e.g. Jimmy Saville. What they have are no more the sub-standard gossip columnists, repeating verbatim items dictated to them; with particular regard to sports journos - an oxymoron if ever there was one - it was well known even prior to release of an autobiography that at least one 'senior journo' sent his 'exclusives' to the subject for approval prior to submitting to his own editor. By and large, the 'Hello' generation of the general public don't want thorough, investigative journalism, they want - at most - thirty second soundbites, preferably juicy gossip about the latest media darling, a twitter feed for complete twits. They want to be kept "doped on sex and religion and TV", to quote another rocker.

When it comes to 'weightier' matters, I can't help wonder when they create a level of hysteria they've whipped up with this covid 19 b/s what it is they're really trying to hide? I stopped reading newspapers years ago, rarely watch or listen to the news but even so it's impossible to miss things like this and the whole Brexit fiasco. How on earth did the supposedly most intelligence life form on this planet end up in a situation where two of the world's leaders are Trump and Johnson? It's like a bad dream I just can't wake up from.

Put something on facebook and it can go viral in an instant and taken as gospel. As an example, someone posted that Halloween would fall on Friday the 13th for the first time in 666 years.I was staggered by the amount of supposedly educated people who thought this was amazing. I see one doing the rounds now that the police are stopping people from driving to a park for their daily walk; I don't know if it's true or not but already there's a massed pitchfork army ready to lynch anyone ho might be a threat to their own little world.

 

[sunnybob]

Time to resurrect all the episodes of Drop The Dead Donkey.
Damien would be in his element. =D> =D> =D>

 

[Andy Kev.]

Similarly when I want entertaining maliciousness, Private Eye never disappoints.

That's part of the magazine's shtick, of course, but there's also frequently seriously good journalism in the mix ... plus my favourite section of the vicious and reliably scathing book reviews. I think I might have seen one review in my many years of reading the magazine that was close to complimentary: it was a comedian's book - can't recall the name, but maybe it was written by Paul O'Grady. Slainte.

I sometimes wonder about the Eye's literary views. I can't recall a single positive one and I wonder if the reviewer only selects from those which cross his desk the ones that he dislikes. I've also found myself wondering if there is some score settling going on, the London literary scene being famously bitchy.

I always enjoy Snipcock & Tweed, though.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Most journalism is now reading press releases, and presenting the information as news. As incomes drop for media companies, they have fewer resources and less inclination. Coupled with the bought-and-paid-for political system, the media works hand-in-glove with the corporate owners to present a narrative.

Disturbingly, almost any quote from 1984 fits what is going on these days - it probably always did, but there is nowhere to hide any more.

And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'

 

[Sgian Dubh]

I always enjoy Snipcock & Tweed, though.

Ah, yes. Always clever, and frequently juicily and meanly balloon deflating.
Celeb is good for twisting the meaning, context and understanding of words.
Slobs/Slobettes for, well, just because it paints a picture of bad behaviour, actions, and the mindset of a sort of partly mythical type of 'tribe', if that's the right description.
And, of course, the Letters, with Pedantry Corner often being particular fruitful: the Pedants/Pedant's/Pedantry Corner debate some years ago was, er, well, illuminating. Slainte.

 

[flying haggis]

when the media outlets ie bbc/sky etc set up 24hr news channels that is when the standards dropped IMO they have too much time to fill and not enough news. they also have to keep producing items to fill the time which then means they spend the budget so it looks like they are doing a good job, NOT. when was the last time you saw a report about what has happened rather than what is about to happen? my particular gripe is when the news "reports" about a speech that a minister is going to give later that day. Just wait UNTIL the speech has been given the REPORT the fact. and while I am in rant mode how many times do you see one journalist/presenter (and i use the term loosely) interviewing another journalist/ presenter, happens all the time on my local station.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

This may be appropriate here:

Regarding the situation in Italy: Most major media falsely report that Italy has up to 800 deaths per day from the coronavirus. In reality, the president of the Italian Civil Protection Service stresses that these are deaths „with the coronavirus and not from the coronavirus“ (minute 03:30 of the press conference). In other words, these persons died while also testing positive.

https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-1
I am struggling to work out if Coronavirus deaths are new, unexpected deaths, or just the normal everyday cycle as expected but propagandized to frighten everyone. All the fear and chaos suggests the world is ending, but the article says quite the opposite. Somebody is wrong - two conflcting world views. What does the data really say? How on earth do you find out? The discussion on the Coronavirus thread makes no mention of what if the experts/politicians want to actively mislead everyone, for whatever reason.

The conspiracy theorist in me thinks this could all be a scam to hide the collapse of the financial system that was already in motion before Christmas. Blame it on a virus, and no one will march on the billionaires' mansions, because of "infection risk".

Who knows? The jury is out, but I can tell you that the financial fallout will be significant, and long lasting. We the peasantry will be poorer afterwards. Let's see if the overlords will consolidate and increase their wealth at our expense - that will be the real tell.

 

[AJB Temple]

Scam? Maybe. But we have 50 dead doctors in Italy and 10,000 other deaths. I am not sure that this can be explained away by conspiracy theory.

I do agree that the the Euro is in deep trouble. Britain is out and will not bank roll desperate Italy and Spain and the Germans cannot fund everything. I read the German and Swiss press most days and I think that we will see a sea change in the next two years. France postures a lot but is not enamoured with subsidising other countries .

Imports from China will not recover IMO. Trust has gone completely. It will take years for supply chains to be sorted out. But that presents opportunities. Significant ones.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Scam? Maybe. But we have 50 dead doctors in Italy and 10,000 other deaths. I am not sure that this can be explained away by conspiracy theory.

I do agree that the the Euro is in deep trouble. Britain is out and will not bank roll desperate Italy and Spain and the Germans cannot fund everything. I read the German and Swiss press most days and I think that we will see a sea change in the next two years. France postures a lot but is not enamoured with subsidising other countries .

Imports from China will not recover IMO. Trust has gone completely. It will take years for supply chains to be sorted out. But that presents opportunities. Significant ones.

2,000 people a day die in Italy, on average. Every day. From all kinds of diseases, disasters and accidents. An extra 10,000 is a lot of people, but when some, if not all of those are part of the normal 2,000 a day it may not be as dire a picture as painted.

Something not made apparent is how Switzerland has a hugely higher number of cases per head of population. Is this because they test more? It's an odd discrepancy.

The economic fallout is going to be brutal, and long term. Perhaps they will finally fix what they didn't fix last time. Or not.

 

[profchris]

I am struggling to work out if Coronavirus deaths are new, unexpected deaths, or just the normal everyday cycle as expected but propagandized to frighten everyone.

The Times has carried some useful analysis on this question (along with other stories which are less well-researched), as did the most recent episode of Radio 4's More or Less (which for those who don't know focuses on numbers and statistics in the news).

What I gather from that, and reading other sources, is that around 50% of those who die from coronavirus-related causes would likely have died within the next 6 months or so. That proportion might be higher, but is definitely less than 100%. So some at least, and possibly 50%, are "extra" deaths.

The practical (and political) problem is that concentrating even all those "expected" deaths into a few weeks rather than across 6-12 months, swamps the health services. And once they are swamped, the death rate from diagnosed cases* jumps from around 1% (UK currently and most of Italy) to 6 or 7% (Lombardy).

My judgment is that this is worth being concerned about and taking measures to prevent. Thus the current measures to slow the spread of the virus, keep the health services just about coping, and thus keep the death rate down to that 1% number. We can argue about how correct the current UK measures are, but Lombardy shows us that doing nothing leads to serious problems.

*Note that I write "diagnosed cases". We won't know for months, maybe longer, how many cases are asymptomatic. And the difference in testing levels in different countries is huge - Korea's 0.6% death rate might be the same as the UK's in terms of outcomes, but with much more testing. This might explain the Swiss figures too. Comparisons from country to country based on diagnosed cases are pretty meaningless without data on testing.

 

[AES]

There's a lot of "truth" in the above. As a Swiss resident & citizen I can also add a few "facts":

1. Switzerland is a lot smaller than UK, both geographically and in population numbers (about 2.5. hours to drive across - or up/down the whole country; pop approx. 8M give or take);

2. Unlike the UK (forgetting the Irish/NI border) Switzerland has direct land borders with 4 other countries (Austria, France, Germany, Italy). Until the comparatively recent shut downs (on different dates) all the land borders were, in essence, completely open;

3. Even after the known start of the Italian Corona situation, almost "free" travel between Switzerland and Italy (particularly the hardest hit area of Italy in the North) was still "free" in at least one direction - in addition, "grenzgangers" (people living in Italy but working in Switzerland) had almost "free" movement until almost "the last minute" of the shut downs in each country - AND under normal circumstances it less than 30 mins drive from, say, Milan, to the Swiss border and on into the Swiss Kanton of Tessin (originally the most hard hit with Corona);

4. In addition, "grenzgangers" to/from France and Germany (+ Austria to a lesser extent) also continued until lockdown dates in each of the countries concerned - again different dates in each country;

5. Without checking figures (it's late!) I seem to remember hearing that Switzerland has made more virus checks per head of population than most other countries, including UK. Example, nearly 100% of our front line health workers (Drs, nurses, ambulance people, etc) have all now been checked). I THINK I'm right in saying that "Simply said, the more checks per head of population you do = the worse the statistics in terms of infection and death numbers";

6. As a long-term resident here (30 years now) and WITHOUT playing the "better than/worse than" game, in general terms Switzerland is "better organised" than many other countries in many different ways - e.g. we have a fully functional Civil Defence organisation (which has been VERY active from the start) and the military (also playing a major role right from the start) plus CD and the Army are generally quite well equipped and stocked it seems;

7. According to an early 2020 survey (BEFORE Corona) Switzerland had more Drs per head of population than most other European countries, especially GPs (that includes Germany, Italy, and UK). Not sure about nurses per head (wasn't in the survey). OTOH, our health system, whilst VERY efficient, is also one of the most - if not the most - expensive in Europe.

AGAIN I'm NOT saying "Ha, Ha, we're better than you"! Sometimes, IME Switzerland is better than most (I've lived is 6 separate countries in my life, and worked in I don't know how many others); but also, sometimes Switzerland is definitely NOT better than others!

But someone above asked for possible reasons and I hope I've provided some.

I am definitely NOT interested in playing the political/blame game here. IMO we are where we are now, and that's the important bit, almost regardless of how "we" - individually or nationally - arrived "here". And this publishing of the statistics (number dead, number infected, etc) per country is, IMO, largely irrelevant - it's NOT the Olympics or the football World Cup! What matters (IMO) is what's happening and what you personally are/are not doing wherever you are that counts.

Edit for a P.S. Re-reading the above, it MAY come across as being somewhat "defensive". Sorry if that's so, that was NOT my intention, which was simply to explain "the facts" as I see them as a Swiss citizen/resident.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

The conclusion therefore is that the total shutdown if the economy has been necessary. I think. Jake on the other thread is particularly helpful - the total number of deaths may or may not end up being huge, but having everyone rock up to the hospital on the same day would be a definite crisis.

At some point we need to start looking at the economic fallout, and also whether the curtailed freedoms will be returned, or if the world will live in a locked down police state for ever.

 

[profchris]

At some point we need to start looking at the economic fallout, and also whether the curtailed freedoms will be returned, or if the world will live in a locked down police state for ever.

Indeed, and that will be the really hard question!

I read in today's Sunday Times (not a very reliable source, but this piece looks like straight reporting) that in China the restrictions around Wuhan have just been lifted. The outcome of that would tell us a lot if the Chines could be relied on to publish reliable information (the same article says that the number of cremation urns delivered to Wuhan is reputed - unconfirmed of course - to be around twice the reported number of deaths!).

Italy might also be helpful because it is a couple of weeks ahead of us.

The big experiment is in the US, where Donald Trump has just decided not to imposed a lockdown in New York. If disaster doesn't happen there (but I very much fear it will) the world will relax somewhat.

Here are some things which I think all the scientists would agree on:

1. The virus will continue to spread throughout the population - how fast depends on how much people mingle.

2. This will continue until we reach herd immunity (around 60% infected and recovered) or until a vaccine is developed (around 12 months away, with luck).

3. The death rate is about twice that from seasonal flu if hospitals are not overwhelmed, so there will be accelerated deaths and a number (unknown) of additional deaths above normal rates.

4. If hospitals are overwhelmed, the death rate increases by a multiple of 5-10.

5. There might be some antivirals available in the early Autumn which will reduce death rates back to something like normal seasonal flu (though there will be more cases because the virus spreads more easily).

The political decisions will be about how to react to these. How long can restrictions be maintained without the population revoting? (This will vary among societies). How much damage to the economy is sustainable without other effects occurring which have even worse consequences? (No idea!)

As part of the mix there will normal, self-serving political questions such as: Will I be blamed and thus not re-elected.

Like anything complicated, there are no easy and obvious answers, and a range of answers to choose from. Because predicting the future is difficult, choosing between them is also difficult.

 

[Bodgers]

What’s your source for the items in your list? - they seem doubtful at best.

 

[profchris]

What’s your source for the items in your list? - they seem doubtful at best.

Which ones are doubtful? I'd have to look around for the sources because I've not been noting them down.

Number 1 is how all infections work if their infectivity (R number) is greater than 1. Coronavirus from memory is somewhere around 2.6, i.e. on average each infected person infects 2.6 others. That's calculated from the speed at which is spreads.

Of course, if each person contacts no-one else, the spread stops. But once contact starts again, a single case infects 2.6 others and we're off again. So the process would only stop if there were no infectious people left in the world. And that leads to number 2.

If you doubt number 1 then you really don't understand how infections spread.

Number 4 comes from the differences in death rates between Wuhan/Lombardy and the rates in the rest of China and Italy respectively.

 

[Bodgers]

5. Antivirals by August?

 

[profchris]

Theres a long explanation of antivirals and vaccine candidates here:

https://www.clinicaltrialsarena.com/ana ... cov-drugs/

My Autumn (not August) date was from interviews on Radio 4 with researchers and I think the medicines regulator, suggesting they could allow short cuts in the trials. One researcher (Fri or Sat morning) was looking for permission to trial all age cohorts together - usually it's young and fit first, pause for analysis, then elderly and infirm.