Coronavirus update - NO MORE RESTRICTIONS

[dml1954]

Interesting section below of an item in the Independents online news coverage, which I think puts the current situation in perspective. Some of the media coverage of the outbreak has been disgracefully designed to deliberately panic the public :-

‘Despite the obvious seriousness of the situation it is important to keep the threat in perspective (during the 2017-18 UK flu season there were 26,408 deaths and 1,692 in 2018-2019). The UK's chief medical officer Chris Whitty estimates a mortality rate for coronavirus of one per cent. (Other earlier estimates have been higher at between 2 to 3.4 per cent].
In comparison, SARS had a mortality rate of more than 10 per cent.’

[A Quiet Monkfish]

Interesting section below of an item in the Independents online news coverage, which I think puts the current situation in perspective. Some of the media coverage of the outbreak has been disgracefully designed to deliberately panic the public :-

‘Despite the obvious seriousness of the situation it is important to keep the threat in perspective (during the 2017-18 UK flu season there were 26,408 deaths and 1,692 in 2018-2019). The UK's chief medical officer Chris Whitty estimates a mortality rate for coronavirus of one per cent. (Other earlier estimates have been higher at between 2 to 3.4 per cent].
In comparison, SARS had a mortality rate of more than 10 per cent.’

We're living in an era of media saturation which can dictate how we perceive the event at the expense of objective analysis. If the BBC had announced one day in 2018 that "1500" people had died today from flu-related causes", and followed up with reports of over-run hospitals etc., I'm sure we would have been horrified. I reckon the audience for the TV News from 6pm onwards is massive and like myself most are almost in a panic by the end of the reports. Then you look at the numbers and the deaths - albeit to date - are equivalent to 9 for a city the size of Birmingham. In 2020 in the Western World we aren't as close to death as those African Countries where make shift hospitals are full of malnourished babies dying in their mothers' arms - we live in a cosy, well-managed world without the hardships other poorer people experience every day. I think it's like FDR said about 'nothing to fear but fear itself".

[lardy]

We're living in an era of media saturation which can dictate how we perceive the event at the expense of objective analysis. If the BBC had announced one day in 2018 that "1500" people had died today from flu-related causes", and followed up with reports of over-run hospitals etc., I'm sure we would have been horrified. I reckon the audience for the TV News from 6pm onwards is massive and like myself most are almost in a panic by the end of the reports. Then you look at the numbers and the deaths - albeit to date - are equivalent to 9 for a city the size of Birmingham. In 2020 in the Western World we aren't as close to death as those African Countries where make shift hospitals are full of malnourished babies dying in their mothers' arms - we live in a cosy, well-managed world without the hardships other poorer people experience every day. I think it's like FDR said about 'nothing to fear but fear itself".

It's becoming fun now. For how long will monkfish refuse to accept that it is a real problem? I would have been sure the tail end of march, but apparently not!