Two Sides to the Story.

The big headline on today’s BBC News website is the fact that the USA now has 25% of the world’s covid infections. I would say that’s hardly surprising given the size of America’s population and the fact that it’s probably the most socially mobile country in the world (courtesy of crazily cheap gas which makes us Europeans highly envious and encourages climate scientists to tear their hair out.) But the point I want to make is this:

Every day the media concentrates almost exclusively on the scare stories. It’s all about today’s increase in infections and deaths. It proclaims in big letters that America now has a quarter of the world’s infections. Sounds huge, doesn’t it? And if such a wealthy place as America can suffer so badly, what hope is there for the rest of us? It carries images of people in masks, and newly built, sanitised treatment centres which look like the starting point for that long-predicted dystopian future. It’s all guaranteed to sow the seeds of depression, anxiety, and even panic.

So I took a look at the statistics for the county I live in and the neighbouring one. I multiplied the number of known cases by four to take account of the fact that not all cases are recorded. (It’s an arbitrary figure, but one which will probably suffice for the sake of argument.) I took out the calculator and worked out what percentage of the population has contracted the condition. It came to 0.5%.

Do you realise what that means? It means that something like 99.5% of the population – or 199 in every 200 – are probably free of covid. I do realise that this is little comfort to those who do have it, and considerably less to those who’ve lost a loved one. I further realise that if we become complacent the figure won’t stay at 0.5%. And so I’m not suggesting that restrictions should be relaxed; all I’m saying is that it made me feel less threatened.

So should the politicians and the media be putting both sides of the picture to the people? It’s a difficult one. I assume the politicians don’t trust the people to understand the relationship between the need for extreme caution and the actual risk. And maybe they’re right. Maybe people do need to keep having the scare stories and the negative statistics thrust at them in order to keep them in line.

But maybe there’s another question to be asked: can the people trust the politicians and media to strike the right balance between guarding against physical threat on the one hand, and preserving emotional wellbeing on the other? Probably not.

In the meantime, life goes on for nearly all of us.

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And while I’m at it, I was reminded again today of the shabby and self-interested way in which the banks and large corporations are conducting their business during the crisis. I could wax eloquent about the disingenuous nature of their messages of ‘support’ to their customers. But I think I’ve rambled long enough about covid for one day. I do wish I could find something silly to ramble about.