Not in China where it started.

In contrast...

In 2018 I got 'flu. I was in a five star hotel in Morocco. I stayed in bed for a week, only emerging for one hour (in which I warned my room cleaners to wear masks so as not to get flu). Had room service deliver meals to my door ("Leave it outside"). Within a week I was fine.

The reason? My flu jab in October 2017 had been the wrong type.

Millions in Morocco got the same flu that year. Discussed symptoms like crazy with everyone. We all coped. We all got over it.

What has changed in the last two years? Media power. Belief by the majority of human simpletons that Media Hype is truth.

I'm well aware that the ONLY rule for media is - "Is it a good story?". Raised circulation. Ratings. Revenue.

It's happened for years around the False Allegations Industry. Many are now convinced we're a species of Vile Perverts.

It is believed that more lives have been saved from the Coronavirus than it has killed. This is because 55,000 people would normally die every year in China due to poor air quality and pollution, which has improved dramatically since the closure of many factories.

eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/0...-lives-pollution-car

A better link; edition.cnn.com/2020/03/17/health/china-...aths-intl/index.html

My worry about the Deniers - that we should believe media this is a global plague of biblical proportions (better story) - is that Governments, totally ruled by media, will start reacting as though this WAS a biblical plague instead of a minor virus fatal, sometimes, to the vulnerable.

If instead of shutting everything down they concentrated on the elderly and unhealthy, many fewer would die. If, instead of getting retired nurses and doctors to return to work (many in their 60s and 70s), they brought in the Army, properly protected and trained.

But these now cannot happen because authorities are reacting to the media agenda.

WRONG!

One of the lessons that needs to be learnt from this: don't ever use a referendum for this bunch of idiots until you've improved standards of education radically. To see these buffoons at the supermarket today, buying just random stuff (they've already cleared the shelves of medicines etc), because, well, they're in the stockpiling zone at the mo, was so depressing. Some idiot was buying masses of chilled stuff whose shelf life was about four days!! Once this calms down we'll see masses of newly-obese people staggering out of their homes, making zombies appear more civically-responsible. And sometimes governments consider 'asking the nation' to make decisions? Bloody hell!

My initial “gut feel” is like yours; a belief there has been an overreaction and that this virus is just a bad variant of the flu and though some measures were needed it should be proportional.
I am moving away from that opinion because I’m not an expert and though gut feel is a useful filter when you know something about a subject but I am not a virologist. The shutdown strategy is being supported by the vast majority of experts around the world and most of the dissenting voices are actually criticising the actions for not being taken soon enough or are not tough enough. Of course the media will widely report all of this and some will exaggerate.
The study of viruses, their spread and how to control epidemics is not a new subject and there is a wealth of academic studies and case histories to reference. Though the owner of this board and all the contributors may be highly intelligent this is a subject that requires expertise that isn’t processed by many.

I repeat BB I, at least, AM an expert. I know more about the workings of the media than anything else. And given the media hype, of course medical experts & scientists will join in and agree. If this was simply a bad new mutation of 'flu, media would equally be hyping it and experts would be saying the obvious - this is serious; we must beat it.

But it is only serious for the 10% and sensible reaction would deal FAR more effectively with protecting & treating that 10%. By hyping & inflating it, consequences will cause far more problems. Bleating platitudes is dangerous, especially if those platitudes are wrong.

Yes: concentrate on stopping the spread to the 10%. Stop the 10% catching it (I've been self isolating for two weeks now). But don't stop events, close pubs etc.

I hate to cite the following as an example of when the authorities can get it wrong with ‘one size fits all’ but remember the ‘Stay Put’ policy that left many Grenfell Tower residents trapped?

This isnt a media lead situation. It originated in China were the media is controlled. The spend being incurred around the world is massive, very real and if it could be avoided it would be.

In the USA Trump desperately wants it played down as he built a lot of support from the stock market gains but even he has had to accept the advice from the medical experts.

Sometimes it is fun to take a controversial stance and go against the crowd, but not always.

It originated in China; the media picked up on it; turned it from a trivial virus like flu that needed to be stopped, treated, beaten into a plague killing millions (which it isn't). Exaggeration, as in so much, has been the key here.

Media attention and a true story are not necessarily mutually exclusive. I see and hear lots of respected and high ranking medical experts on the media supporting the action being taken around the world. This isn't a situation where the journalist or commentator interprets the story and that is the only source of information for the public. Much of this story is being told by the scientists and research workers directly to camera. There will of course be people who consider themselves experts in everything who will insist everyone but themselves is wrong and even if you line up a 100 experts saying the same thing they will stick to their own interpretation.

Until I see and/or hear an equal number of qualified individuals giving a different opinion to the current belief I will go with the majority. If it does happen and the current view is wrong and medics start realising it then the media will pick up on that story. As has been said the media “like a good story” and if evidence starts to support a different view of the situation then the media will pick up on it.

But you see BlueBoy I don't disagree with the experts. This is one way to stop the spread of the virus. Shut everything down. Even better and more effective would be to kill everyone; then nobody would catch it. I agree with the medical opinion that this virus can be lethal. Just like flu. I agree that cancelling Euro2020 and Eurovision and Glastonbury will slow the spread. I also feel there are better ways of doing it. Concentrate on protecting & treating the elderly. Try harder and faster to find ways of making it not lethal in many cases. Find a vaccine. Essentially, behave as we have with flu. We all know this will end one way or the other. We all know there will be another health panic when something else mutates. Media has urged us to consider this a lethal plague worthy of panic, shut down and repercussions quite dreadful. It will be even more hysterical next time (better stories require even more inflation). I condemn governments for believing the media; not the experts. And for not asking the right questions of experts.

The media must have been in a deep crisis to have created a crisis of this proportion. Why doesn’t Trump and Boris take them on? What have they got to lose?

Oh no; nothing intentional. Incompetence beats conspiracy every time.

JK2006 wrote:
............ I also feel there are better ways of doing it. Concentrate on protecting & treating the elderly. Try harder and faster to find ways of making it not lethal in many cases. Find a vaccine.

And no doubt your solution to the Middle east problem is to get them to stop fighting,

The way to close the wealth gap is give the poor more money

End world hunger by giving food to those that need it.

Save the music industry by finding more hits

Problems solved and on the seventh day have a rest.

A sign of how ineffectual the media is to make positive changes is its daily reporting of the idiocy of stockpiling. It can create panic and fear, which leads to things like stockpiling, but it appears incapable of reversing it. It can't create calmness and reason.