Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[ForeverBlue92]

There is no way world governments will fully give up the power they have on the populations since the Pandemic imo.

Said for some time that in the future when the population rises to the point of being unsustainable you'll have mandatory euthanasia of certain groups such as elderly and these "national debates" and "polls on mandatory vaccinations" will all be used in the future as they are now to attack certain groups in our society.

Scary times.

 

[Ghost Rider]

It’s a weird take this. It’s putting the cart before the horse. The 1000 hospitalisations figure per day isn’t something the media have made up here to support the restrictions.

The 1000 figure is a number in SAGE forecasting and modelling, which was published yesterday in their minutes, which the media have then reported.

The 1000 figure is simply based on current numbers and expectations, with a doubling multiplier applied to it.

I personally don’t think it will get to that point, as the early indication from South Africa is that the vaccine (Pfizer) is holding - however that data is somewhat anecdotal and no data for AZ - hence the uncertainty around it, but it’s pretty easy to understand the modelling.

Seems to me that those who most distrust anything the media says, and say it’s all fearmonging, don’t get very far past a headline before jumping to panicked conclusions.

The problem with the media though is that the headline is what sells the story now , rather than the article itself. We live in an age of click bait and sharing rather than reading and understanding. The media outlets , or at least any that are not deemed to be the classiest know this. So that headline is what makes people share rather than the story.

When it comes to social media , people don't read the articles, they share them.

 

[grandjoeblue]

Almost like clockwork.

Government announce restrictions , headline the next morning;

We could see up to 1000 hospital admissions a day!

They keep saying that and it never comes true. Plus it's impossible if so much of the country is vaccinated and all data on this new variant says mild symptoms in vaccinated people. Who is going into hospital? It assumes that every unvaccinated person catches it again. Even worst case scenario it's just going to be mild, as per every expert thus far.

Just typical, if you want an example of why the media is fear mongering , just check the news today. Almost like running that story is designed to back up the government restrictions to make more people comply given the circumstances.

A 1000 does sound scary but it's been round 800 for quite a long time anyway.

We're still actually around 20% down on hospitalisations from the start of November.

 

[efcfanwirral]

.

That link takes you to any admission into hospital


The story specifically says variant admissions at that level. General hospital admissions can range from a heart attack to a broken leg and anything in-between.

The only time we have seen that level of numbers was at the start of the pandemic when we had no immunity , no antibodies , no mask policy etc. Couldn't tell you what the exact figures were then but wouldn't doubt them being that high.

The difference between then and now, or January and now is the vaccine. If the vaccine leads to 1000 admissions a day anyway, then it devalues the vaccine, which is not true. We will never see those level of figures , especially given that data out of South Africa is still reporting largely unvaccinated admissions.

We had just over a thousand on the 18th October and we didn't bring in restrictions then. They didn't seem to be sticking around as the numbers actually in hospital stayed steady then dropped the past few weeks.

If the variant becomes the dominant one surely that'll just be 1,000 again? If 1,000 is the end of the world and justifies restrictions now, why didn't that happen in November when the covid situation was worse in the hospitals?

These graphs are not shared enough

 

[mill]

Did he mention anything about natural antibodies and how they can be as effective a form of protection as the vaccine? Can herd immunity have a similar effect on the evolutionary process of the virus as vaccinating everyone?

Herd immunity will have a similar effect hence why the previous ones evolved.

But vaccinations get you there quicker because as the virus has to ‘keep up’ with each iteration of the vaccine.

Think herd immunity to a variant rather than the virus. You can either get boosters each year or potentially catch each iteration to become immune.

It’s why boosters se important.

To be honest, it’s made me realise that the real issue through all of this has been messaging. Maybe it’s just me but the way it was explained this morning made vaccinations and boosters make even more sense. It’s a roadmap to get out of this. Which I think nearly everyone will want.

 

[Amw79]

The problem with the media though is that the headline is what sells the story now , rather than the article itself. We live in an age of click bait and sharing rather than reading and understanding. The media outlets , or at least any that are not deemed to be the classiest know this. So that headline is what makes people share rather than the story.

When it comes to social media , people don't read the articles, they share them.

I agree with this, although it’s not a new thing.

It’s been the case for decades (or more), that the headline is not designed to summarise a 1500 word story in 8 words, it’s 8 words designed to make you read the 1500 word story.

Just listen to anyone who’s ever written even an opinion piece for a newspaper, they’ll tell you that the only words they didn’t write, was the headline, which will have been written by a sub-editor, and very often the author will tell you that the headline often contradicts or conflates the general point of the article, for the above reason.

People who just read headlines and react, will indeed be very ill informed, and confused.

Should the responsibility be on the media to change their headline writing protocol? Maybe, although that’s clicks and profit driven, so there’s no competitive incentive to do so. So the responsibility really falls on the public to be able to properly parse media stories, separate fact from conjecture, and so on.

 

[efcfanwirral]

I agree with this, although it’s not a new thing.

It’s been the case for decades (or more), that the headline is not designed to summarise a 1500 word story in 8 words, it’s 8 words designed to make you read the 1500 word story.

Just listen to anyone who’s ever written even an opinion piece for a newspaper, they’ll tell you that the only words they didn’t write, was the headline, which will have been written by a sub-editor, and very often the author will tell you that the headline often contradicts or conflates the general point of the article, for the above reason.

People who just read headlines and react, will indeed be very ill informed, and confused.

Should the responsibility be on the media to change their headline writing protocol? Maybe, although that’s clicks and profit driven, so there’s no competitive incentive to do so. So the responsibility really falls on the public to be able to properly parse media stories, separate fact from conjecture, and so on.

As that's not possible, it becomes very murky when money, big business, political interests for editors and politicians can manipulate those headlines for their own gains. All four being more related than many would like to believe

 

[Amw79]

As that's not possible, it becomes very murky when money, big business, political interests for editors and politicians can manipulate those headlines for their own gains. All four being more related than many would like to believe

The close links between media and politicians is extremely unhelpful. Given that leaks and inside sources are key in breaking stories first, it’s in journalists interests to have those close links in place. This is a much bigger problem than headline writing.

Not sure what you’re saying is not possible? The public being able to parse information properly?

 

[JLW]

I agree with this, although it’s not a new thing.

It’s been the case for decades (or more), that the headline is not designed to summarise a 1500 word story in 8 words, it’s 8 words designed to make you read the 1500 word story.

Just listen to anyone who’s ever written even an opinion piece for a newspaper, they’ll tell you that the only words they didn’t write, was the headline, which will have been written by a sub-editor, and very often the author will tell you that the headline often contradicts or conflates the general point of the article, for the above reason.

People who just read headlines and react, will indeed be very ill informed, and confused.

Should the responsibility be on the media to change their headline writing protocol? Maybe, although that’s clicks and profit driven, so there’s no competitive incentive to do so. So the responsibility really falls on the public to be able to properly parse media stories, separate fact from conjecture, and so on.

Admittedly I am guilty of doing this myself, if i see a headline saying 'government predict 100,000 new cases a day by winter' normally by the MSM, i dont even bother reading it, in fact the headline is the reason i don't read it.

There was a headline i think it was on BBC a few months ago which said something like "Floods in Mexico kill 7 covid patients in hospital" What does it matter what the patients were in hospital for? Again i didn't read the article.

 

[MikeH72]

Admittedly I am guilty of doing this myself, if i see a headline saying 'government predict 100,000 new cases a day by winter' normally by the MSM, i dont even bother reading it, in fact the headline is the reason i don't read it.

There was a headline i think it was on BBC a few months ago which said something like "Floods in Mexico kill 7 covid patients in hospital" What does it matter what the patients were in hospital for? Again i didn't read the article.

That is very weird actually. Why even include that detail?

 

[JLW]

That is very weird actually. Why even include that detail?

Clickbait because covid was mentioned. I will try and find it.

 

[Deleted member 48881]

 

[Amw79]

Admittedly I am guilty of doing this myself, if i see a headline saying 'government predict 100,000 new cases a day by winter' normally by the MSM, i dont even bother reading it, in fact the headline is the reason i don't read it.

There was a headline i think it was on BBC a few months ago which said something like "Floods in Mexico kill 7 covid patients in hospital" What does it matter what the patients were in hospital for? Again i didn't read the article.

As many do.

That’s a great example, where we saw the “100,000 new cases predicted” type headline.

Can’t remember the actual numbers, but taking the above as correct, the actual story was more like - SAGE forecasting (not prediction - different thing) shows possibility of up to 100,000 new cases, if no new measures are taken, which they were. That figure will have been extrapolated on the basis of current numbers, with a doubling multiplier applied, taken from the current known R number.

When cases then didn’t hit 100,000 - people said “see that means the prediction was a lie”.

It wasn’t. It was a forecast, which was publicly available (and you could check the method and the maths yourself), on the basis of continued growth in the absence of new measures.

 

[Amw79]

Clickbait because covid was mentioned. I will try and find it.

Correct. Clickbait is just a modern name for headline. Has the same intent - make people read the article.

Covid is an interesting subject, hence this thread now being a million pages long or whatever.

 

[tsubaki]

The close links between media and politicians is extremely unhelpful. Given that leaks and inside sources are key in breaking stories first, it’s in journalists interests to have those close links in place. This is a much bigger problem than headline writing.

Not sure what you’re saying is not possible? The public being able to parse information properly?

This government especially is especially unhealthy in that way - prominent RW hacks are very close friends (Wickham, Nelson, Stratton), or exes (Vine, Cole) or even partners (Wakefield) of the people making the decisions.

They should be disbarred from ever reporting on the people who they are hopelessly compromised on.