Where is our sense of proportion?

columnist

This is not to argue that the coronavirus has not been a terrible event but it has certainly been hyped beyond what is reasonable, to the exclusion of the useful and worthwhile comparisons I have just made - and there are many more. The media, given a choice, have always highlighted the worst of the figures. Moreover, if one reads or replays the reporting of the last three months you will see that there has been scant attention given to the fact that for some months now China - population 1.4 billion - has shown convincingly that it has practically defeated the virus, apart from the odd cluster here and there. Positive stories don’t sell or, in China’s case, are not welcome for ideological reasons. Better to highlight the travails of France - 111,000 deaths with a population of a mere 67 million, dramatically lit up by the Eiffel Tower.