The Pandemic and the Media

 

Australia - Total Cases - Courtesy Worldometers* 

I'm sure that you remember, gentle reader, the daily news conferences (at state and federal level) that were broadcast during the first two years of the pandemic.

In most households they were routine viewing.  Usually the premier or PM (flanked by a coterie of health officials) would go into great detail about the significance of the daily figures.

During this period (March 2019 until about November 2021) the daily cases, hospital admissions and deaths were read out with the frequency of the football scores. We saw graphs and analyses to burn.

Take a look at the graphs here.

The first one above, shows a dramatic rise in cases on December 1st 2021 to 211,654, a figure about seven times higher than the average between August 2020 and July 2021.

 

The second graph (total deaths) shows a similar trend. We are losing between about 80 and 100 Australians daily to this virus, which is far in excess of the figure one year (and two years) ago.

The daily rate is shown below -

So what is going on? Why is this case and death rate no longer newsworthy? Is the media convinced that we are over it, and news about the pandemic no longer rates? 

Or perhaps the various governments are relaxed in the knowledge that the health system has, more or less coped with the increase in cases, and they are no longer at electoral risk through mismanagement of the pandemic.

Whatever, with two of my family already affected, I won't be relaxing the previously mandated precautions so loudly proclaimed during the last two years.

You, gentle reader, can please yourself.

*You can check this site here.

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