I read an online daily newspaper and I must admit I am really hacked off with the inflammatory statements and reporting going on. I feel that they have stirred up the food shortages with photos of empty shelves and endless reports of people not finding milk, pasta, toilet rolls and paracetamol so that people rush out to buy. We have had no noticeable advice from the government to calm things down and reassure people. What about the safety adverts they used to run, couldn’t they do something to encourage people to blow their noses into tissues, wash their hands and cough into their elbows when out and about. Nobody seems to be calming matters down instead the press are intent on pouring petrol onto a bonfire and scaring people to death. Then there’s the grotesque ooh 100,000 infected, with the undertone of ooh how high can we make the total. The press can write tens of articles about the same fact and twist it in a million different directions all the while making you feel as if death is banging on your doorstep. Why can’t someone take a lead and be reassuring and responsible for calming us down with sensible instructions and realistic advice. This is like a stampede after an incident, there is the initial casualties and then many more are injured in the panic and stampede that follow. The press take rumours and exaggerate them and present them as facts in many stories, they also quote a ‘reliable source’ in many stories when as far as I can see they’ve made it up. That probably doesn’t matter in many instances but when you are playing with the nation’s health and wellbeing it surely does.
