When will the media tide turn

[Time2change2]

So anyone who isn’t a complete ‘sheeple’ knows that much of the media and press is driven by what the government wants us to think and behave. Need them to stay in? Scare the living crap out of as many people as possible with day after day of deaths. Not working and young people still going out? Instantly day after day of young healthy people dying with COVID.
It’s worked it seems. Much of the UK have lapped it up and are now too scared to send kids back to school or go to work. But soon (over the next 2/3 months) kids are going to have to go back. Workers will have to return. Shops will need people back in spending money. And soon after that? Tourism will need to be restarted, flights will need to fly with people on them.
It’s going to take work from the media and government to undo the fear they have instilled.
I’m watching with interest about when the media tide turns. When will we hear of recoveries, good news stories and positive outcomes. When will this agenda be pushed?
Anyone else watching and waiting? It’s all so obvious to me and I can’t believe more people can’t see straight through it!

No. Covid, not fear, stops people working, children going back to school, etc.

People can't work if they're off sick for weeks and weeks. Or dead.

Sometimes fear is rational. A global pandemic - particularly being in the UK, the country with more deaths than almost any other country in the world, is one of those circumstances.

You might be comfortably off, white middle class, under 40, no underlying conditions, with no loved ones in any of those categories. That makes you a minority.

Your neighbours and your father seem to have an extreme reaction. That's not how the majority are reacting. I'd suggest you point both in the direction of MH support.

Yes. We need to mitigate the damage. Reduce the risk so that it's safe for the economy to start trying to reopen. So let's get on with it (as some on these type of threads are fond of saying). Let's get the PPE, testing, drugs, and masks. Like other countries have done. Presumably you want that? That's our safe way out. It can't be too difficult given other (poorer) countries have managed it.

Yes I absolutely want that and yes it’s a new virus don’t caution is needed. The vulnerable (such as my father) do need to be protected. Some people are in a very difficult place such as a family I know who’s child has cancer and the whole lot of them can’t leave the house at all for any reason except hospital.
However, for the non vulnerable people, the under 45’s who do not have underlying conditions the level of fear is not justified (in my opinion). This is what I mean by the terror instilled by the government via the media. This is what I am getting at with this post. Many have been led to believe if they get it (healthy, young) they will almost certainly die.
On the number of deaths issue which you keep mentioning, how are you so sure we have had the most deaths in Europe and possibly the world?

"The most deaths in the world ?"

The UK is at #2, FAR behind the USA, which is #1 for the most deaths in the world

"how are you so sure we have had the most deaths in Europe"

From officially published statistics
UK government briefings used to take these to compare the UK to other countries
... they stopped once we became #1 in Europe

If you prefer deaths / million population:

The UK is #4 in the world, behind Belgium, Italy, Spain
(ignoring 2 micro-states with a few thousand people and a mangy dog each)

Good job your opinion as Karen from Facebook is irrelevant then OP

Risk becomes significant with increasing age:
From age 45, having COVID doubles your risk of death this year
Governments advise those aged 70+ to stay home

Young people have a tiny risk of death
Children have a v v microscopic risk

• it is only their teachers and family members who may be at risk if they have underlying health conditions and / or are aged 45+

Gov policy seems driven by Left wing media scaremongering its actually quite frightening

This is the most ridiculous thing I've read in a long time. It's almost too stupid to unpick. One of the most right wing governments in a long time are actually driven by the left wing media? What. The. Fuck.

And I'm sick of hearing how we're all being stupid sheeple for staying in. Where, exactly, are we supposed to go? Force ourselves into pubs? Break into our work places? Drop the kids at school and run?

Never watched the news, Boris briefings
Just done our thing.
I have no fear about going anywhere
Had a lovely day out today
Done my mh a power of good

To start saying hey people are recovering, not so many are dying, it’s all going great. People just don’t read those kinds of stories.
Are you kidding??

its only their teachers and family members who may be at risk if they have underlying health conditions and / or are aged 45+
Rather a lot of people.

Yes the only country in the world with more deaths than us is America. With a far larger population. Our death rate is much higher than America's. So we have the second highest number of deaths in the world and a higher death rate than the only country with more deaths than us. Doesn't look good really.

We need to stop repeating the mistakes that got us to this. Time now to take measures to mitigate the damage. Start saving both lives and the economy. Get more PPE, border restrictions, masks, drugs, early treatment, tests. Time to follow the lead of other more sensible countries.

This isn't a political issue. Other countries handling this better come from both the left and the right.

Its all been pre planned ....

I think that the tide is turning - bad news stories did sell but people are bored ridged of the news being full of CV so the newspapers will need a bit more variety (that comes with lockdown lifting/easing in order to keep selling soon.

Well I’m bummed because I’m 45, therefore right on the cut off between very low risk and omg better write your will on Monday. I would definitely psychologically feel better if I was 44.

Had the exact same conversation with DH over breakfast this morning.

@priya38 what is that?

What's been blacked out Priya38? Do you know?
The document you posted is from government discussion over how to protect lives and the economy, I presume? It's understandable they had to discuss it. As so many threads here show, some of the general public don't get what a deadly highly infectious disease means unless and until it infects (and kills) them or one of their immediate family. It's that sort of dangerous ignorant complacency that had to be taken into account during policy discussions.

I challenging you to work one shift on a Covid ward OP. Yes the majority of people with Covid are elderly but certainly not all, and does that mean that their lives are not worth us as a society doing our bit to help protect them. Yes most of us will get a mild case if we get it, but who knows how the next person we pass it on to will suffer. Seems your (at risk) father is a sensible man if he's keeping his distance with your attitude.

People who abhor the media, may I ask where you source your news?

I can only speak for myself. Individual journalists and publications don't represent the whole media sector. I think some sections of the media have been incredibly irresponsible with their reporting. Others have done their best to cover it well. I can also imagine there's times when individuals or publications are put under immense pressure by publishers to take a particular angle or report out of context or misquote or something else they might prefer not to do. I've no doubt some coverage (of anything) is done through gritted teeth. Perhaps the London Soon Free Of Covid obvious nonsense is one of these instances.

@ToffeeYoghurt

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Many have been led to believe if they get it (healthy, young) they will almost certainly die

I don't know who or what has led them to think that, all the data including that referenced by the govt has always suggested otherwise. My DM is in her 80s and has said throughout that while she doesn't want to get it, and it is a big risk at her age, she still expects she would pull through. That is what the data suggests.

Many people don't seem to know how to find reliable information, or how to think logically about that information if they do find it. I include myself as someone needing to improve in those skills, but I am not as bad as many others.

If people actually gave some thought to the sources they use in learning about covid, they wouldn't be so easily misled.

@Time2change2 Because of the housing situation in the UK my 25 year old niece lives with my 84 year old parents. She works in a school environment But is currently at home.

There was a report on care workers on Channel 4 news. One of them lives in temp accomodation with her son and shares a kitchen and bathroom with ten other families.

The housing situation in this country (due to past and present housing policies) is exacerbating the pandemic. IMO this is one of the reasons that we have so many cases of Covid

Helena's right.

And it's a big reason why we can't compare to Sweden. Fifty percent of Swedish live in single person households.

Time2Change2 You claim to be well researched - better than most. Where do you do your researching?

*No, it's nothing to do with the "posting police" - "sheeple" is a red-flag cliche beloved of people who use conspiracy theories to make themselves feel special/better.
*There's a difference between reading/watching rationally and critically - for bias, for an agenda, for nuance - and believing absolutely everything written or broadcast by journalists is either a lie or sinister conspiracy. The latter is basically the intellectual equivalent of injecting bleach - stupidly simplistic, the bluntest of tools - and the results are equally calamitous when it comes to sensible discourse.

This^^

Humans rely on stories to guide behaviour. They always have. It's the main reason we have religion "religion is the opium of the masses" and all that jazz. Toe the line and you go to heaven, don't and you go to hell.

History books are written with as much spin as a Tory in deep water; that's the point of using critical thinking when reading, and also reading a wide range of sources. I think even the Archers was originally created for political education.

When it comes to femicide, the DM is horribly good and reports on cases ignored by the others. In a way you could argue they're deliberately being used by someone somewhere to raise awareness of DV among the population who tend to buy that paper? I have wondered this.

It's obvious in national emergencies that the press are used by the government; they'd be stupid not to. People needed a level of fear to comply (think Father Christmas, you'd better be good.) Basic child psychology; they rebel if you tell them not to do something, but if it's a force we can't see or predict (virus, Santa, boogeymen, a fearsome god,) they immediately toe the line. The bbc are basically there in reserve for just such a crisis. BBC Bitesize is a factor in that.

On top of that, certain media outlets are owned by and controlled by people with other agendas so there will be spin from them too.

I honestly despair when I read posts like this. Are you not even slightly bothered that there's an actual pandemic in progress? That we might, you know, NEED to avoid getting infected and passing it on to the elderly and vulnerable? Do you really think the govt is that well organised? They couldn't organise themselves out of a paper bag.

This is what I mean by the terror instilled by the government via the media. This is what I am getting at with this post. Many have been led to believe if they get it (healthy, young) they will almost certainly die.

Nonsense. People create their own fear, they don't need the govt to enable them. In fact, if the govt was downplaying all this, and giving us rainbows and hopeful messages every day whilst people die in hospital of Covid-19, we would be accusing them (rightly) of covering it up and trying to brainwash us!

The worst part of all this is the utterly stupid conspiracy theories I've seen doing the rounds on the 'net, and spouted by people who I previously thought had a few brain cells.

Yes the economy is suffering, not just here but in every affected country that has chosen lockdown. It's awful but it's a choice of do that and save lives, or don't do it and lose more. Nothing about this is ideal and to imply it's all being stage-managed and promoted by the media is crazy, imho. There simply isn't that level of joined up thinking going on. 'The Media' isn't a single body, there are thousands of journalists and news outlets all around the world, they aren't all writing the exact same thing.

Many have been led to believe if they get it (healthy, young) they will almost certainly die

By whom, the media? There's plenty of data and graphs to show that it's the over 60s who are most at risk. We have been told by govt medical officers that the risk of dying is still far lower than actually developing severe symptoms and dying. There are younger people who have died too, though, and people are able to make up their own minds, which may include becoming fearful (I'm not surprised as dying with Covid-19 is hardly a pleasant experience). I agree with Inkpaperstars, people need to become more critical with their thinking and interpretation of information. A lot of folk seem incapable of doing that.