Thursday 2 April 2020

COVID-19 : WHAT ARE THE REAL FACTS ?

As the COVID-19 epidemic continues to be the only issue in the news, the media continues to stick to its lop-sided reporting, particularly when it comes to headline stories. Ignoring every potentially positive story, doing little but publicise everything negative and look for whatever they can criticise the government for either doing or not doing, there is little for the public to be joyful about.

Yes, there are tiny oases of fluffy nonsense, such as a family of You Tube video makers or a nonagenarian's 90th birthday party - along a whole street - but such are not news in any real sense of the word and aren't telling us anything of value. Virtually every piece of real news concentrates on the horrors of the epidemic and how dreadful it all is.

For all we know, the truth may be very different to what we are being force fed. In the UK, we actually have no idea of the number of infected people, meaning that the published numbers for those testing positive for the virus and those dying have no grounding; they are simply numbers. Without far more information it is impossible to place these numbers in any proper context or to answer some very basic questions.

How infectious is the virus ? What proportion of those infected can be expected to develop worse symptoms than those of a bad cough or cold ? What proportion of those infected can be expected to die ?

In the absence of answers to these very basic questions, the necessity of the real damage to our economy being done by the current 'lockdown' cannot be properly measured against the assumptions of lives saved by it. Are we talking £1,000 per life saved or £1,000,000 ? If the former, it's probably worth it, if the latter, maybe not. The trouble is that such an epidemic has never before been experienced in our technological and computer-driven age and there is too little knowledge about the true nature of the virus or its ability to spread and survive. Computer models have been developed but they are based on assumptions that may, or may not be, valid; governments have reacted more out of fright than anything else and the media has revelled in their uncertainty, picking holes at every opportunity.

Let's be clear. It's highly likely that very many more people have been infected than is shown in the official figures. The vast majority of those infected have experienced mild, or no, noticeable symptoms and have recovered without even knowing they'd been infected. As a proportion of the population, those admitted to hospital with sever symptoms is tiny, and those dying, while sad for them and their families, is almost negligible. Again, the vast majority of those admitted to hospital have been those naturally more susceptible to infection and serious illness - the elderly, already sick, or with compromised immune systems. Yes, a few otherwise healthy people, even some quite young, may suffer dire effects, but so do they in epidemics of influenza and the assorted childhood illnesses.

This is not to minimise the widespread nature of this current epidemic but to try to place it in some sort of realistic context. Very few of the population are at serious risk and only a very tiny number, in proportional terms, will die from COVID-19; most of those who do will probably have died fairly soon from other conditions which the virus has exacerbated. However, listening to, watching or reading the media we could all be forgiven for believing that the end of life as we know it is just around the corner; that we are all at peril of our lives and their is no end in sight. The numbers are mounting ! But with no context in any of the headline reporting.

No government or health service anywhere in the world was prepared for such an outbreak of disease and nor could they have been. This is a once in a century situation and to be holding reserves of hospital beds and equipment to cope with emergencies with such a frequency is practically and economically impossible. Our government's response, which seems to be receiving nothing but criticism from most of the media, has been rapid and has developed as the crisis has deepened; at the same time, the media has concentrated on highlighting every complaint from whoever it can find who will whinge about lack of resources, testing, money, support, blah-blah. Of course there are problems, some of them real and time that  imagined, but why do we not hear more support for our leaders at this time of crisis ? What we get, instead, is the usual sentimentalised twaddle about our wonderful NHS and its 'front line staff' who, it seems, can do no wrong, ever, despite well known evidence to the contrary, some of it experienced personally and on several occasions.

It really is high time that our media forgot its biases, and simply reported the real news, without trying to embellish it to fit its preconceived notions and desire to make the news 'exciting'. Some hope.

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