What's happening in Italy? Media rant.

[Flippetydip]

The media in general and the BBC specifically are really beginning to grate on me. They are only reporting the negatives in every situation. Since the USA death toll has become high that's all they've focused on. What is happening in Italy now? Has it levelled out? If so, why aren't we hearing about it? Why are the recovery rates (far greater numbers) never mentioned at the same time as new cases and death rates?

People need some positivity. I realise that the situation is dire, believe me, I do, but if we are not given some hope in the situation, morale is going to become incredibly low.

The media outlets are all competing with eachother for viewers/readers, so they try and sensationalise every story. “Things look like they might possibly be getting a bit better” is not going to attract attention like “ambulance crew collapsing with exhaustion after taking 1000th patient dying of corona to struggling A&E”. And they’re in paroxysms of joy when they can report the death of a young person “who was previously fit and well”. I avoid it all.
If you want to know the simple facts and figures, look at sites like worldometer.

Thank you @Flippetydip. Indeed we do need news of what's going right in all this! Of course the Daily Wail (and most of MN) are going to focus on the doom and gloom.

The worst thing about this is that we don't know when the end will be, so it's impossible to plan and hope. If it was a fixed period, it would be much easier to handle emotionally.

Schadenfreude, no need to apologize. At least two of us on this thread are in Italy, and yes, the figures are still high, especially for the number of people dying, which is to be expected given the sheer number of infections, BUT, the rate of infection is slowing. As can be seen by the curve (check out the graphs thread that someone else has mentioned)

Sugaring the pill doesn't help anyone and the MH crisis will be far in excess of the CV one when we have mass 1930s unemployment.

The way i am getting through this is by being careful, staying home where possible (i have to work in relation to food retail IT) but most importantly by realising (or convincing myself!) the odds of getting a serious case of CV is still remarkably low and on par with getting Flu or Pneumonia in a normal year..... so in 2012 29k died of that, inc 58 children, with the vast majority over 64 and with underlying health issues.
Out of a population of 66,000,000 thats a tiny percentage.

It's great news that Italy is levelling. It's harder to say that it's because lockdown has worked. You will always see this pattern in an epidemic because, in time, a virus (or bacterium) runs out of new people to infect.

I think it is clear that the measures taken in South Korea did work because they bucked the trend and controlled the outbreak much faster than other countries. The jury is still out on lockdown, I'm afraid, though obviously it is right that the UK is now trying it.

Schadenfreude I can't believe you were criticised on here for what you wrote, of course it is positive news despite it still being very difficult. Completely right.

MrsNoah It is entirely clear that if new infections in Italy are starting to level off (and they are still in the 4,000s/day!), it is because of lockdown. Have a look at the map of Italian infections - we have not seen outbreaks in say Rome or Naples like we have in Lombardy because these areas are locked down. We can only hope that in another 2 weeks, this is still the case.

And lockdown in Italy is a very different beast than lockdown in the UK. It remains to be seen if the UK's much looser rules will be just as effective. Hopefully so.

Op you have to understand that the media's "job" is to report news. So when a terrible situation improves, or goes away, or get resolves, no they aren't going to report that. For instance, does anyone remember seeing any news stories about the Australian bush fires being brought under control and put out? No. Because that's not news.

Yes watching the news can be sobering or frightening, but that is what they are there for. I would suggest watching the news (or however you digest your news media, online, newspaper) just once a day, otherwise it can be overwhelming.

I’ve watched them too many times basically give contradictory information to what any scientific, government advisor or nhs director has said

Its quite difficult to report accurately on government pronouncements when different members of government contradict each other frequently in public.

The quality of comms from the government as been as woeful as the initial responses and follows a lengthy period of evading challenge or accountability.

We get the media people pay for. Slash public sector broadcasting and see the country's flagship news services struggle to function and default to regurgitating "briefings". The popular media is driven by sales and clicks so it will inevitably focus on attention grabbing and dramatic stories, irrespective of their news merit.

OK, that is great news. Not great that the deaths are still high but to be expected. THIS is what we should be given news of. It should be "it's working in Italy, it can work here, be patient" rather than the hideous stuff they are producing every day giving no-one any hope as we just sit and wait.

I'm sorry but boosting public morale isn't the job of the media. It just isn't. That kind of messaging is the government's role (or public health).

My sister and her family live in Milan and I'm really glad they look to have reached the peak. My nieces and nephew look so fed up when we Facetime them. It does worry me their lockdown is much stricter than ours - are we doing enough?

Anyone wanting positivity should follow @profkarolsikora on Twitter, his daily tweets are great.

There are other sources of news beyond BBC and Sky - who generally assume that British aren't interested in what happens to foreign people, and most of the time they're not wrong.

You've got access to the internet, so check out the Italian news directly - either the English international pages or the Italian sources directly using Google translate.

It's the information age, it's all out there if you look for it.

*Maybe op needs some straws to clutch at, can you blame her?

It’s a desperate situation
There is no end in sight to lockdown
There will be a huge mental health crisis after this*

Does this give you your answer op? The media essentially give people what they want and many, many people are LOVING the doom and gloom drama of it all. I mean, I know the situation is very dark and difficult and it will take years to fully recover. However, we will recover in time and it's not a crime to look out for and relish the small green shoots that we see. Yes Italy and Spain are cautiously starting to level out now and seem to have passed their peak. What I find interesting is that whilst Italy was still spiralling people were full of "oh we're two weeks behind Italy" but now that Italy seems to have hit a plateau all we see is "but the U.K. are still in full flow with no end in sight"

Apparently NOT now following Italy.

I'm personally being very, very careful and I hope everybody else it is too, put careful and optimistic don't need to be opposites. We will get through this!!

I would also recommend the worldometers site (apologies if this has already been flagged). You can drill down into each country and see exactly what is happening where, as well as the global view. If you are looking in the morning it is always worth clicking on the "yesterday" tab (see picture, in blue) rather than "today" as early in the day not many countries have yet reported their data.

worldometers

MrsNoah It is entirely clear that if new infections in Italy are starting to level off (and they are still in the 4,000s/day!), it is because of lockdown

It isn't as simple as that. It also depends on the infection levels in the population. Please don't misunderstand, though, I am absolutely not arguing against lockdown - I think we should make it tighter, in fact. I am just arguing against an assumption that we will follow Italy because we have instigated lockdown.

We are doing all sorts of other things differently in the UK. In particular, we have probably turned every doctor and nurse in the country into an infection-spreader by not giving them adequate PPE. This has happened in some areas of Italy, especially Bergamo, because they ran out, but not in others.

Anyone issuing any kind of communication at this stage needs to find a balance between terrifying people and allowing people to think its not that bad and that the social distancing measures are unnecessary/too draconian/don’t apply to them.

I've said it on other threads but like some news outlets and even some posters here are wallowing in it.

It's just doom, doom, and more doom and the more there is the happier they are, and even that's not enough.

I might be clutching at straws but I need something positive, I feel I'm drowning.

Of course it is good news that Spain and Italy are on a downward trajectory; it means there are thousands of deaths that will no longer occur. How can that not be good news?

I agree about BBC - they have been almost salacious in their reporting of bad news. The have also seemed to have turned away from journalism to reporting twitter and gleaning their inaccurate ‘news’ from there. Sometimes barely touching on what the law actually is.

A couple of weeks ago they announced that they were suspending laying off 450 journalistic staff. What on earth are they doing? Not their jobs it seems!

It's also worth remembering that when you're talking about "Italy" you're mostly talking about just one region - Lombardy - that's been heavily hit whilst much of the rest of the country is in a situation similar to most of the UK.

Morale may wear thin, but this isn't a war/battle as the media/government is presenting it, and it's not a movie where the vaccine will appear half-way through the third reel and everyone's cheering in the streets twenty minutes later as the credits roll. It's more like a siege. We're in it for the long haul. Pace yourself, and don't invest all your hopes in a quick fix.

Plant some seeds, you're going to have time to watch them grow.

Daily confirmed cases in Italy are now trending steeply down (down to 4-5k per day from double that at the peak).

The peak new daily cases in Italy was actually 6,557.

I'm sorry if it looked like I was pleased that there were deaths in Italy and Spain - of course, I'm not!

Don’t worry @SchadenfreudePersonified - most of us knew exactly what you meant.

Frankly, for the last three weeks or so, the BBC has been looking like a proper American channel, they are reporting a lot of what is happening in America almost nothing about other countries (much like the American channels), I don’t know if they are trying to keep us calm about it all but there is more coverage about this crisis over America than of what is happening on this side of the Atlantic.

You can track daily figures for any country here:
www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

The problem is that some people don’t think this is going to affect them. You see them round here, not social distancing, meeting up in the parks etc.
There is a real risk that if papers started printing positives more people would think it’s okay to break lockdown, start socialising, not bothering with precautions etc.

Yes it’s horrid only concentrating on the negatives but if that’s what it takes to keep people focused on mIntIng sensible precautions then so be it.

Personally, I’m doing what I can to stay safe and avoiding the news for the most part.

I think the UK media/government could do a far better job at explaining the expected delay between lockdown measures and changes in new cases, and then death rates. Lots of people seem to be expecting fast results and are interpreting the Italian figures still being high as lockdown not working, which scares people and/or gives them an excuse not to follow the rules.

Here in Italy I would say the tone is cautiously optimistic, the signs are good that the transmission rate is decreasing. Yes there are still lots of new cases but it's to be expected as more tests are being done now. Hospitals are reporting lower a&e and ICU admissions, especially in Lombardia, which locked down slightly earlier and has been worse affected.

The situation in Italy is highly regionalised, lots of the stories about "Italy" really only apply to certain northern regions. The same goes for the hysterical articles about law and order breaking down when the issue concerned a few supermarkets/areas in Sicily/Naples - here in Italy it was barely considered worth mentioning.

Where I live it's perfectly calm and people are just patiently staying home and waiting it out.