Media Coverage of the CoronaVirus

There’s never been such a clear demonstration of the power of media than watching their coverage of the Coronavirus. The crisis has pretty much dominated the airwaves of the main TV stations for several weeks now. Either with news of the virus itself or the huge impact from the various strategies being deployed to defeat it.
All it takes is a few seconds coverage on prime time TV of queues in supermarkets to create a wave of panic buying.

Yet there’s a bigger worry than the impact from mainstream media. All across social media various myths and falsehoods are spreading, many are completely false and some are just plain dangerous.

Here’s just a few from Medical News Today –

1 Spraying chlorine or alcohol on skin kills viruses in the body
Applying alcohol or chlorine to the body can cause harm, especially if it enters the eyes or mouth. Although people can use these chemicals to disinfect surfaces, they should not use them on skin.

These products cannot kill viruses within the body.

2. Only older adults and young people are at risk
SARS-CoV-2, like other coronaviruses, can infect people of any age. However, older adults or individuals with preexisting health conditions, such as diabetes or asthma, are more likely to become severely ill.

3. Children cannot catch COVID-19
All age groups can become infected. Most cases, so far, have been in adults, but children are not immune. In fact, preliminary evidence shows that children are just as likely to become infected, but their symptoms tend to be less severe.

4. COVID-19 is just like the flu
SARS-CoV-2 causes illness that does, indeed, have flu-like symptoms, such as aches, fever, and cough. Similarly, both COVID-19 and flu can be mild, severe, or, in rare cases, fatal. Both can also lead to pneumonia.

However, the overall profile of COVID-19 is more serious. Estimates vary, but its mortality rate seems to be between about 1% and 3%.

Although scientists are working out the exact mortality rate, it is likely to be many times higher than that of seasonal flu.

5. Everyone with COVID-19 dies
This statement is untrue. As we have mentioned above, COVID-19 is only fatal for a small percentage of people.

In a recent report, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that 80.9% of COVID-19 cases were mild.

The WHO also report that around 80% of people will experience a relatively mild form of the disease, which will not require specialist treatment in a hospital.

Mild symptoms may include fever, cough, sore throat, tiredness, and shortness of breath.

6. Cats and dogs spread coronavirus
Currently, there is little evidence that SARS-CoV-2 can infect cats and dogs. However, in Hong Kong, a Pomeranian whose owner had COVID-19 became infected. The dog did not display any symptoms.

Scientists are debating the importance of this case to the epidemic. For instance, Prof. Jonathan Ball, Professor of Molecular Virology at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, says:

“We have to differentiate between real infection and just detecting the presence of the virus. I still think it’s questionable how relevant it is to the human outbreak, as most of the global outbreak has been driven by human-to-human transmission.”

He continues: “We need to find out more, but we don’t need to panic — I doubt it could spread to another dog or a human because of the low levels of the virus. The real driver of the outbreak is humans.”

Of course what’s vital in dealing with any story or ‘fact’ that you find online is whether it’s from an authoritative source. The fact repeated on a random twitter account or some unknown blogger should be treated with a huge level of caution.

It’s safest to use professional bodies and source information from their main website. For example using the World Health Organisation as your primary source of medical updates is probably a wise move – https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019. These are usually very accurate although some larger organisations are often a little slow in posting updates.

For traditional media then picking a large mainstream media is a good tactic. In most countries there will usually be a large broadcaster either public or commercial that can be trusted. However in authoritarian states social media will ironically be more accurate than public statements.

In the United Kingdom for instance most people will trust the main public broadcaster the BBC. In France most people will tend to rely on one of the major French broadcasters such as M6 Replay

If you don’t have access to a local organisation that you trust or just prefer something like the BBC’s coverage then you will probably need a VPN to access. This allows you to bypass the geo-country blocks which exist on most of the major broadcaster’s sites restricting access to their domestic market. This basically means that you use the VPN’s address instead of your own for example to access the BBC News like this –

It works for most sites and countries though so don’t think you just need it to watch the BBC. You can certainly select a US VPN server for example to watch things like CNN outside the United States.