The placebo effect - How much damage has fear mongering by the media done?

The placebo effect - How much damage has fear mongering by the media done?

Here we are going to ask if  the way the media has portrayed Covid-19 could be having larger negative effect on those whom tested positive for Covid and subsequently made the illness through fear mindset worse resulting in higher hospital admissions and possibly even deaths. 

before we get into my theory, lets do a quick review of from Dec 2019 - Jan 2021:

Dec 2019 - Reports started filtering out of China of a new virus that had managed to jump from a bat to humans, similar to the SARs virus of 2002.  

Jan 2020 - Reports leaked out of China, WHO declared Covid-19 a worldwide pandemic and could be another and the Chinese government's actions as far as we were shown was hide what was going on and eventually locked down Wuhan on 23/1/2020, they set about building hospitals in days and put all its citizens under house arrest. 

Feb 2020 - The world watched on, whilst governments (including our very own Scottish/UK governments) seen cases emerge and said & did nothing (I'm pretty convinced looking back at timelines and who our house was in close & regular contact with that we may have had Covid-19 in our  house in the middle of February, we were not testing for viruses back then, not even for Flu or common cold and no body died or was even hospitalized, treated with lots of sleep, pain killers, lots of water & soup).

Mar 2020 - The UK government ignited COBRA and put the UK into lockdown (not a full shut off island lock down as we were told though), businesses closed, pupils sent home, stay at home & we'll beat this in 3 weeks we were told....we'll leave that there for now. 

We still do not know the full extend of the Chinese outbreak and most wouldn't put much past China since they deny having forced people into brainwashing concentration camps that ring alarm bells of 1939, except this is in 2021. the old saying wouldn't touch them with a barge pole is also ringing so true in my ears during these times.  The WHO have just completed a 'investigation' into the possible origins of Covid-19 outbreak...problem is the who have supported and received funding from china in many respects over the years, therefore I would advise taking this advice from the WHO with a pinch of salt.

I have included a interview about a film called 76 days, which covers the situation in china during their full draconian lockdown, filmed between 3 Feb 2020 - 8th Apr 2020 and as usual we well know this film was not sanctioned by the Chinese government for release.  We still do not & may never know the full scale of the situation in China as it has such a censored media. 

Whilst looking at the placebo effect we do have to understand that we are not advocating free speech censorship, and we must not think that China censoring their media is due to them considering the placebo effect, It is simply not the case that some of their reasoning behind controlling the media is so not to provoke fear over Covid amongst its citizens , we know they have a history of using the censored media to hide human rights abuses and much more. Our own media however may think they are keeping the nation informed, yet are frightening people over a virus with a 97% survival rate. Lets look at that shall we...

What is a placebo?

According to WebMD  a placebo is anything that seems to be a "real" medical treatment -- but isn't. It could be a pill, a shot, or some other type of "fake" treatment. What all placebos have in common is that they do not contain an active substance meant to affect health. 

The fascinating effects of the placebo lies somewhere  deep within our minds which can produce measurable scientific changes in the body.  The placebo can be in the form of a sugar pill or even a faux (yes, fake) surgery and giving that only 10% of drugs on our markets out perform the placebo effect.....it shows you how powerful 'belief' in healing or sickness from the medications, treatment and other aspects are. These are beautifully explained here by Alia Crum, a Stanford professor in psychology.  

Which is why we are questioning here the potential effects of placebo here. The world media and governments have bombarded the news several times daily for the past year with figures of:

• Positive Covid cases - which includes false positives and does not include anyone not tested, more empathies' on coverage when figures are rising than lowering ones.
• Death figures - not shown as a percentage of cases or population but in number of deaths, which to the human mind is more computable and therefore more relatable and in turn can produce fear or hope mindsets. 
• Other variants - That may  be more deadly or immune to vaccines, small percentages, not being put it in perspective, instead using trigger words.
• Overrun hospitals and  care homes - well, that will happen when your healthcare system is not fit for population size and we forgot to have a contagious unit despite at least a decade of warnings of antibiotic resistance and other virus outbreak predictions.
• Emotive advertisements that paint the picture of being a murderer just by being near another human.

In the Gov's own words - New emotive TV ad challenges the public to think about the impact their actions might have by asking: “Can you look them in the eyes and tell them you’re helping by staying at home?”  

There's one of those undecided words again..'might'....we are seeing these words more frequently each day, words that before meant possibly...not factual...not guaranteed....could go either way now seem to mean the opposite. 

How manipulative is that, when this is the Women's Aid domestic violence video about isolation.

The level of coverage certainly leaves little to the imagination that the Gov & Media's aim is that there is a specific aim to frighten people so that they obey the restrictions in the hope that these will reduce case numbers and in turn death numbers, despite that we are never given these numbers daily for any other causes of death through out the year. 

We have now had Covid deaths & cases rammed down our throats for 320+ days...that news takes its toll on the psyche alone ....I post this video to the UK (all) governments to remind them what this can do.

Now what we have is people literally frightened to go outside which before was called Agoraphobia which is a recognized mental illness, and we have people's mental health suffering  with rising levels from the likes of depression and anxiety, not seen before, families fractured by opinions and fears, children thinking other humans are murderers and that they must stay away (We've already seen drastically lower levels of children not being allowed out to play in streets since the fear driven media that covered the Madeline Mccann abduction, as if every body became a potential abductor overnight or that these cases are common, the whole idea of stranger danger children are fed is statistically wrong.). We have people unable to access medical treatment, schools closed, domestic violence rising, access to support services cut and told not to even go out in nature which is one of the best things a human can do for their physical and mental health.

In an aim to try reverse some of the fear (Covid is a real virus, that I do not deny) we'll look at the figures another way like a whole country population approach and remember neither science nor statistics are set in stone, they are open to new learning, and adaptions (they are questioning some science we've been using for centuries, they always are), they are open to interpretation in either direction to the point Even the ONS have the very low percentages of the population estimated as being Covid positive quite clearly on their website, yet this is not what we hear in the media, what we her in the media is big figures that scare the human mind. 

Quick view of % of Covid cases of population (as at w/e 30/01/2021):

England - 1.55%
Wales - 1.40%
Northern Ireland- 1.56%
Scotland - 0.88%

Death rate - 0.14% 

 

(These figure are so tiny I've resorted to increasing the text size of the decimal places for you to see them clearly, your welcome.)  

Recovery rate - 97%....fail to see that stat presented anywhere!!

Despite these figures above, during this second wave we are seeing more hospital admissions than during the first wave and more deaths than the first, especially with hospital admission amongst the under 65's, sure it's winter time, cases naturally go up since winter is the season of death for many species, yet I cannot help but look to the media's representation of this pandemic with almost a year of round the clock fear mongering the public to behave and stay at home under a self imposed house arrest, cancelling medical treatments and forcing many into the depths of poverty, all whilst the government run round like a bunch of clowns in the background, making sure they and their mates are 'making the best of the bad situation'  in the process. 

South African  & Kent variants now being the driven narrative of the media scaring us over and over again by telling us it's more infectious (its a tiny percentage) and our potential new found freedoms all lie within the vaccine program may be flouted due to the vaccines being less efficient against these variants giving off absolute speals of medical twaddle and statistics that most people quite frankly don't understand and what we don't understand we fear. Add to that the new story of how vaccines may be affected due to supply issues. and you may just be thinking that Covid is actually aids before a management/cure drug was found, where 100% would die if they caught it (managed HIV is now no longer transmissible (tests to check)). Covid  has a 97% survival rate. 

We've got press conferences filled with 'if', ' but', 'maybe', 'could' and 'should' rarely giving the facts that all viruses mutate like flu /measles and many others do every year (a virus is most likely to mutate when its current pattern is not working to attract its host (it's intent isn't to kill that is detrimental to its life), isolating a virus can force it to mutate quicker if it is not eradicated totally which is incredibly hard to actually do, not just the perception of eradication which is typically referred to as herd immunity (bear in mind we're taking extremes in this biological explanation)).  Still have wishy washy policies that give a draconian overrule of the poor and lower classes who often have no choice but to risk going out, potentially catching and spreading this virus to put food on the table or even care for those whom are ill,  yet these policies still allow those who can afford both the time (for isolation & tech) and the cash (pay fines and quarantine rates) to do what the like and continue to conduct their business and where in the globe. while the rest of us are awaiting a plan out of this with some claiming this will continue for years to come yet.

It is simply not good enough, we cannot lock up a 'healthy' population which will only make them sicker there is so many studies showing we benefit best when active and outdoors,  still the perception is to continue to blame the public for this mess, making them petrified  to see relatives (even to say goodbye), go to work, go to school, go outside especially when some of the police force are abusing powers of entry based on curtain twitchier reports and fines are beyond the means of any person in financial difficultly especially those on universal credits, again the common person is hit worst. 

furthermore, many of us this year have been touched by death in a way that we never dreamed of before or even considered as it wasn't shoved in your face several times a day what effect travelling about whilst ill could have on your fellow citizens, since we all did this before right?  we've all went to work ill even if it was just to be sent home so you could get that days pay. (statutory sick pay does not pay for first 3 days (in a 26 week period) which is how long a general sickness lasts, no employer pay & no sick pay...your automatically down 3 days pay & if your a breadline family then that is critical money. 

The difference is now we are segregated from one another and as a result dealing with the situations of life and death and the emotions that come with such things alone. We are usually comforted by our close fellow humans, except now we have limited capacity for contact (at least that what we're told legally) all of which completely devoiding the healing effects that human comfort can have on one another, the power of hug releasing hormones  that have measurable effects on the immune system and we are evolved to be social beings that need community to survive not just psychically but also mentally, isolation has been long studied as the ultimate punishment for social animals such as ourselves. The long term effects of these lockdowns need to be addressed along side the now obvious biological threats we face.

How do we start to reverse the fear mongering placebo effect that has been placed on us by the media and start healing our psyche?

we've put things into context above and we should listen to those with lived experience in such draconian situations that came before now to help us deal with the mental side of being.

There are those still amongst us who survive the holocaust which is the next closest forced lock up of humans in millennia and when you ask them what got them through they will always say one word 'hope' and one thing they did was to live in the moment, Dr. Edith Eger spoke to Russell Brand, I agree with him when he said "I think it is important at this time of crisis, chaos and conflict to hear a voice from someone who survived the most extreme situation in recent history, The Holocaust. At a time of much division and hateful rhetoric, confusion from all sides, here is a voice that can be truly unifying"

We should all know by now that life is finite, we are all given an unknown set of years on this planet, the point of our lives is not to live inside a concrete box filling our lives with materialistic things, our lives should not be measured in monetary terms rather by those who remember us for being part of their lives. We are social creatures who thrive in community, We are the guardians of this planet for those who come after us, find a place in this life where you make it better, even if it's just by a little. Remember the butterfly effect, we are all connected.  

This one is for the environment, we have a chance to change how we function in this world and how we leave it for those after us. (No! Covid is not the 6th extinction!)

Xpansive Thinker

@ExpansiveT

question everything 😉

Tip: Watch the music vids with the blog content in your mind and listen, don't watch the video as the subjects are different despite the lyrics ringing true in many cases. Please do give to Women's Aid as I have done (if you can).