If something’s not worth reporting, it won’t make the news – you’d think..
So why do so many news channels still make a story out of hMPV, for example News.com.au, SBS News, BBC, ABC News, The Conversation, The Washington Post, The New York Times?
hMPV is the ultimate nothing burger: people getting the sniffles and a cough from an alleged virus that’s been around for at least 70 years and is totally harmless.
But as if on command, the WHO in concert with news channels resurrect the spectre of covid, right on cue, around the 4th anniversary. Even if they do say this one is nothing like covid – just mentioning some parallels, an increased occurrence of that virus in China, and more people ‘getting it’ outside of China would probably trigger enough people. Remember? Well, just in case you’ve forgotten, it could happen again, you know, and it will, as we’ve all been told time and time and time and time again. This one might be relatively benign, but the next one, remember: the next one, that one’s really going to be deadly and get your attention…
Monkeypox and now hMPV are boosters stories they can inject into the population to ensure the fear levels remain acceptably high, and people remain receptive and alert. It seems like they can hardly wait for ‘the big one’.
Perhaps it’s as simple as ‘fear sells’, or perhaps it’s just a sick obsession with disease, but it’s of course also a great chance for the next crop of journos, experts and health propagandists to hone their skills, do the bidding for the billion-dollar pharma giants by hammering home the virtues of vaccines and dangling the possibility of a vaccine for this harmless virus – complete with ever more scary-looking alleged virus images for extra effect, thanks to the wonders of AI.
I didn’t fall for the covid nonsense four years ago, I’m not falling for this one, and I won’t be falling for the next one. I sincerely hope by the time they (whoever they are) try to launch ‘the big one’ enough people will have seen through the charades and also refuse to play along.
