This is something I've been thinking a lot about over the last month or so, especially the last couple of weeks, and I'm sure it's been discussed a lot on the Lockdown Sceptics blog comment section, but I thought it would be worth creating a thread here to discuss the subject.
Over the last couple of months "the science" relating to Covid-19 has become more and more clear in showing that the virus is a lot less dangerous than originally predicted in terms of lower IFR, high percentage of asymptomatic cases (and the relative lack of infectiousness of the latter), T-cell immunity giving many people some degree of natural resistance, and the likelihood of a much lower herd immunity threshold. The current IFR is estimated at 0.1%, a fraction of the 0.9% to 3.5% estimated a few months ago, and about in line with seasonal flu epidemics. (https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/ has a good summary of the basic facts and statistics)
However, the "mainstream" media (certainly in the UK and for the most part, the USA and the rest of the English-speaking world - I'm not sure about other countries, but would be interested to know) don't seem to have updated their perception of, and depiction of, the virus, from Neil Ferguson's infamous prediction in March of 500,000 deaths in the UK without lockdown. There are a fair number of sceptical voices and articles, and articles do occasionally appear, even on the BBC's site, reporting on positive findings like the high percentage of asymptomatic cases. But the general tone is still that this is an unprecedented health emergency, worth suspending or radically altering every aspect of society and life in order to fight. So many journalists writing about social distancing, mask wearing, opening of businesses, etc. seem to lack not only any sense of proportion (both in comparing the danger from Covid to other risks, such as flu, and to the negative effects of shutting down and regulating society) but also any awareness of the actual facts relating to the virus, beyond what they were told back in March. (And I'm talking about FACTS here, from official sources like PHE and the US CDC. The numbers speak for themselves, but nobody seems to be listening)
From people's behaviour in visiting beaches, pubs etc. since the relaxing of lockdown regulations, it seems like the general public are steadily becoming less fearful, either from awareness of the facts or just deciding they're happy to take the risk rather than stay at home. But many people are still fearful, and without a less alarmist, censorious attitude from the media, society as a whole isn't going to be able to get back to its senses (even without lunatic Government decisions like making masks compulsory just as the pandemic is dying out in England)
Not much point in going into more detail describing the situation as I'm sure everyone else here will know exactly what I'm talking about! My question is: what is it going to take for the media to start to change their tune?
It seems to me like a ready-made opportunity for the political Opposition and the media that support them, but the latter still don't seem to have much to say beyond "should have locked down earlier" and sneering at the great unwashed risking a second wave by not social distancing in pubs. I do wonder if part of the problem is that, like the Government, the media are afraid of the consequences of admitting they were wrong. This may be overestimating the intelligence and memory of the public, I think there have been plenty of times where papers or individual journalists have done a U-turn on their attitude to particular issues and hoped nobody would notice!
Anyway I would be interested to hear people's thoughts. I did wonder if some kind of (unofficial) advertising campaign, with the basic facts on fatality rates, immunity etc., could help, but I suspect this might be blocked as "spreading misleading information".
Great post! This is a much wider problem, the covid 'pandemic' has just opened up the pervasive nature of groupthink in our societies. It doesn't seem long ago that it was becoming pretty fashionable to be skeptical of 'mainstream media' and yet the fear porn it sells continues to be consumed ravenously. What we are seeing now, in my view is nothing new but just a depressing continuation of themes that seem to be gathering pace.
Remember when the whole amazon rainforest burned down, the sea levels rose and our entire ecosystem collapsed, all at the same time? Oh wait, that didn't happen did it? Is our natural environment deteriorating? Quite possibly, but what's more interesting is the sheer falsehoods of the green movement. Zealous mobs plead with their governments to tell them what to do, while their masters tour the world explaining that we must all do our bit, making sacrifices in order to be 'good people'. Of course this is all justified as it is backed by 'the science' that can never be queried. If a stance ever does come into question, then the goal posts can simply be moved to a new issue.
Burning coal and trees? That's terrible, horrible and backwards. How about we make solar panels (using coal) and power things with magical biofuel (from burning trees) instead. We are producing too much plastic waste as a society? We should reduce our plastic single-use consumption. Also, let's all wear plastic single-use gloves and masks that we must dispose of everyday!
And let's not forget the madness of the black lives matter movement last month. Did police brutality result in George Floyd being killed? Absolutely. But does this prove that the mixed race officers involved hated black people, and that this is somehow representative of not only an American but global racial problem? Of course the media would lead you to believe that only black men get killed by the police (they're not even the majority). In fact some people were so brainwashed by the media that they even seemed to believe they were American citizens, as people took to the streets to protest around the world. Exactly what these people were protesting or what the urgent need was to gather in the middle of this 'dangerous' pandemic is unclear. But, to express doubts on any of this is sacrilege and must make you one of those nasty old white racists who probably voted for brexit. So be a 'good person' and post a black square on social media, while parroting everybody else.
Any of this sound familiar?
It can be tempting to fall into the trap of seeing all these as being part of some kind of secret agenda or conspiracy. But I think in a way it's slightly more mundane and yet more depressing than that. I suspect many people are generally just too busy to read into a topic, and as such are probably not used to forming their own opinions on matters. They will assume that because other people are talking and acting a certain way that it is probably 'right'.
I've found that often when you try and pin people down on what they actually believe it's often built on very shallow beliefs and a sense that they're doing 'the right thing'. This seems to quickly spiral out of control as the more people who think 'well I might as well', 'it might help', 'everybody else is saying/doing it' then the more people who will go along with it and so on. Add this to the incentivise for scary headlines to sell papers and adverts, and you have yourself a mass frenzy.
So, if you can forgive my rant, what will it take for the media narrative to change?
I admire your willing to transform the media, but I suspect the war may be long lost and remain doubtful it can be changed into anything positive. I think the problem we've got today is for those of us who do wish to question certain narratives is to avoid being marginalised. We've got to try and challenge opinions rather than remaining following dogma and remaining silent. If we can stop the groupthink even to just a small degree, I suspect we may well find there are a great deal of people out there who share similiar views to ourselves
When you have 'professors' coming out NOW saying that severe lockdowns should be reimposed to 'crush the curve', we can confirm beyond all doubt that this isn't about combating a virus pandemic. Watch and weep, bit lengthy but worth it
https://www.youtube.com/wat...
The end of furlough. Most people still see most of the restrictions as minor inconveniences that can be overlooked whilst getting free money. I know for a fact that the first day bounce back loans are called back in, thousands of tradesmen will simply fold.
I agree that the end of furlough is likely to make the general public wake up to the actual situation. I was more thinking of whether the media - or at least some of it - is ever going to be more sceptical and less alarmist. Up until the last few weeks I was really hoping people would start to wake up to the facts before any more social and economic damage is done, but I've a feeling that only hitting the brick wall of furlough ending is going to shock people back to reality, and the results aren't going to be pretty.
Another thing which might make people sit up and think is if the overall yearly mortality turns out to be not much higher than average (most Covid deaths being people who had a high chance of dying within the year from any cause) - the mortality for the first half of the year seems to support this (see the charts on Hector Drummond's blog) but again we will be in the last quarter of the year before this can be proven conclusively, probably around the same time as the end of furlough!
Similarly with deaths from non-Covid diseases as a result of delayed treatment and diagnosis... although the media narrative seems to be to attribute this, along with everything else, to the virus rather than to the lockdown (and related maesures)
"very shallow beliefs and a sense that they're doing 'the right thing'" seems to sum up a lot of the pro-mask attitudes, along with political signalling.
Regarding Pseudo's points on climate change/environmental issues, I've always been more or less a "green" myself, and still am on a local/small-scale level, but the lockdown, and public/media support for it, has made me very wary of the possibility of coercive, repressive societal and economic control around green issues (stay at home, protect the planet, save lives?) and a lot more sceptical of movements like Extinction Rebellion (previously I was less bothered by extremists and zealots for this or other causes, as there was surely no possibility of society going along with them... thought the same about lockdown when it started in March). Similarly the BLM movement, and even more so the media response to it, has really alienated me from the left-wing media, along with their general attitude of "unquestioning virtuous compliance" regarding lockdown measures.
The Spectator is the one mainstream publication I know (not counting non-print online sources like Unherd) which has consistently had a sceptical attitude and also featured many articles examining the facts and science behind the pandemic. They were the first place I heard about the virtual disappearance of new Covid cases in London, for example (this was before I discovered the Lockdown Sceptics blog)
It is depressing when people don't seem to question things either the public or the mainstream media. I will take one example. The entire population was placed in quarantine on the 23rd of March and lockdown restrictions were only slowly lifted. Four months later there are still restrictions in place and we were told coronavirus is still a major threat. If quarantining the whole population is so effective why are we still being told coronavirus is a major threat? What was the point of shutting down our economy and trashing basic civil liberties if has not worked in stopping coronavirus? No one is asking this question.