FORGET MEDIA NEGATIVITY - COVID-19 IS BEING BEATEN.

It's been reported that an opinion poll has suggested that ore people are now dissatisfied with the government's handling of the coronavirus epidemic than are satisfied, the first time this has occurred. It's also reported that the dissatisfaction is most deeply rooted in those under the age of 50, while older people have no such concerns. 

The reporting of these findings was met with a degree of fanfare on Sky News yesterday but, in reality, is it such a surprise ? Firstly, at a time when the number of tests being carried out is rising substantially, the number of new cases and the number of deaths are falling significantly and there has been a degree of easing of the lockdown, the bulk of our media continues to try to find fault and bad news wherever it can. Fed a diet of stories about government failings, most of them irrelevant or mythical, is it any surprise that the most gullible in our society, the young, are lapping it up, while older, more seasoned and rational people treat such stories as nothing but the usual bleatings of journalists desperate to be noticed ?

Of course the government has made mistakes but why does the media refuse to recognize the progress it has also made ? The lockdown is working, despite, it seems, many younger people disliking and increasingly ignoring it; the media really ought to be criticising these ignorant fools and emphasising the need to continue to follow government guidelines, rather than looking for every opportunity to pick holes in the government's approach.

While the government seeks to deal with the epidemic in the best ways possible, the media and others looking for political advantage - Keir Starmer and Sadiq Khan among many others - add nothing of value to the debate, making no constructive proposals and just nit-picking. They find it so much easier and more profitable to sit on the side lines and take pot-shots than to offer support or to report all the news, with equal emphasis and prominence. It's akin to the usual media habit of making the original story front page news and the retraction and apology three lines on page 18.

Forget the rubbish being headlined everywhere, I can see real light at the end of the tunnel. For what it's worth, I see real progress and very significant changes over the next 4 to 6 weeks, so much so that life may look very much better in July than it does today.