Do you think reporting is being restricted?

[jellybeanteaparty]

I have noticed that the news and reporting is quite different from lots of news stories. No footage of outside hospital's, no interviews with relatives or people with the virus or the medics. Initially there was some but now they only seem to show scenes in other countries. Is this by agreement with all news agencies? It feels odd compared to the usual circus! Not sure I mind just curious if others have noticed.

It seems to be far from a "pleb" disease - it's disproportionately hit the well off, well travelled first - those globetrotting for work, and going skiing in N Italy at half term... it's hit Hollywood celebs, highly paid sports stars, MPs and govt advisors.

Of course it will get to everyone else too, in time.

If there isn't enough military resource to deal with a lockdown, why downplay the seriousness of the virus through the media? Surely scaring the general population into submission would work for and not against the lack of actual resource?

I think it’s been massively down played. There was a nurse’s thread just pulled (at her request) about how the true figures are not being reported.

A poster wrote the other day of how this is a libertarian government. I think it is anything but.

I saw footage outside a hospital yesterday or the day before including a big sign directing to the coronavirus ward. Several people milling around. Perhaps the media is staying away from hospitals as effectively they are hot spots for contracting the virus. However, I have only seen this footage and inside wards abroad. I suspect the picture is very different in nhs wards.

@TheLadyAnneNeville Four million households are on key meters for gas/electric.

I really dont think people will accept the platitudes ive seen over key meters on social media and it hasnt even yet been mentioned on any news programme.

I'm not sure about that, @FlushedZebra. We just hear about them because they are newsworthy.
I highly doubt the 80, 000 cases in China and the 59, 000 cases in Italy were, disproportionately, the rich and famous.

I have noticed that reports from UK medics and inside UK hospitals indicate that the crisis is much worse there than we would think from media coverage. There hasn't been much footage from the frontline so to speak, but hell is already breaking loose.

I don't know why they are not wanting to frighten people more, since people are not complying with the restrictions you would think they need to hear the hard truth. Maybe they don't want to risk mass panic until the police and army are ready.

@NellyGrace, the govt do not want to take any of these measures! They are economically devastating and they are not vote winners! There is no choice. No one is lying to you about the disease existing or being incredibly serious....you really don't want to look back on this as someone who went down that road. If anything the full seriousness is not being conveyed to you. Worry about that, not about Boris planning to get everyone hospitalised and microchipped.

Nelly “Firstly I am sure that Cummings/Boris would take full advantage of using this as an opportunity to take greater control of the masses.”

We’d be locked down by now if that’s what they were doing.

A lot of preparations are being made in hospitals, wards shifted around to give much more capacity for corona patients, increased intensive care capacity. And its being used, but there is still capacity, so you won't see scenes like Italy because we are behind them.

there's been a lot of people who had the virus and recovered posting on SM, some shown in the news. And from those self isolating too - today o nthe news, a nummber of people talking about their ways of doing it / coping, some helpful.
There ar MANY comnspiracy theories, the only realistc one is that the Lab based in Wuhan had developed the virus and it was leaked - whether deliberately or not, who knows. Democracy supression - I think it's nonsense, sorry. If anything evil was the plan, more likely to reduce old population that is high cost to economies. But more likely it as an accidental leak.
You can't hide any facts about ill people these days with SM, there will be lots of them coming through on SM as the virus spreads.
It's still a fact that the vats majority gets mild (or strong but short lived) symptoms - it's not enough to wipe out populations or to stifle democracy long term.

Can they be remotely topped up by the utility companies @HelenaDove ? I remember a food bank type charity where I used to live saying they had the ability to charge keys/cards in their publicity.

Someone will have to do something about PAYG customers, surely?

This is a massive attempt to safeguard the economy and to hell with people dying. It won't work though.

sorry for dreadful typos, shouldn't be typing so late!

Mummy if you mean the thread I think you mean then it wasn't pulled at the OP's request. It was pulled for the usual reasons.

You may be right, Lifeisabeach - the first people to contract it in China were market workers.

But the first superspreader in the UK was a guy who had a business meeting in Singapore, then a skiing holiday, and then returned to Brighton.

Anyway, it spreads like wildfire to rich and poor alike.

Nobody said it would wipe out populations. Just kill a lot of elderly and ill people.

Vulnerable people and NHS staff are (unbelievably) being offered the same shopping times

Yes, that is a glaring brain-fail.

Yes I think this is being downplayed.

It feels like we’re getting a lot of mixed messages and the reporting doesn’t seem to provide a consistent picture.

I’ve stopped looking at twitter because I’m finding a lot of retweeted info from medics inadvertently anxiety-provoking, and my family and I are all self-isolating for 14 days anyway as I have symptoms so we’re already doing what we can.

Even the proportion they are saying will die is far lower than in any other country and lower than WHO estimate.
The only news output I trust with this are WHO. And you can tell when they are speaking to the UK government.

Even Last Leg had clearly had instructions about what they could and could not say. They did not make obvious points at all. Very muted.

@ArriettyJones It almost seems a deliberate way to spread the virus

Don't know if it's been downplayed so much as very carefully reported. Which is right, because panic buying and a nation's mental health is also important. I think it might be downplayed a little too much, particularly on the BBC.
But there are so many difficult decisions to make on so little evidence. I've never voted Conservative in my life but this is not a party political issue, it's a crisis and a complicated and nuanced one.

By vulnerable people do you mean the over 70s? I’m not up-to-date on supermarket restrictions as I’m shopping online.

@alloutoffucks but didn’t WHO arguably take too long to announce it as a global pandemic?

@dandy when to call something a pandemic is a political decision. It simply means a new infectious disease that has spread to multiple countries.
WHO had been urging governments including the UK to learn from other countries and put lots of things in place for a long while.

Yes over 70s and with serious illnesses. Mixing them with NHS staff is almost designed to kill people.