What the coronavirus crisis says about us

Media coverage of the coronavirus reveals more about social and political preoccupations than it does about real risk.

(First published on Medium on 9.2.20)

In this third week of mainstream media coverage of the new coronavirus, it’s hard to shake off the feeling that the epidemic wouldn’t have got so much airtime had it not emerged from China.

The country’s rising geo-political prominence means more scrutiny than others would have, especially from the United States. I don’t recall quite so much being dissected when SARS broke out a few years ago — there was no trade war between the two economic powers then; arguably, the media landscape was different too.

Clearly, there’s reason to be worried about this epidemic. Infections and deaths keep rising. They tend to affect older people and those with weak immunity, and although the proportion of people who die from the disease is relatively low at 2%, this of course means many more deaths if the virus spreads widely.

Some believe this past week would tell if we’re heading for a pandemic, and the WHO said it was the window of opportunity for prevention (TIME + New York Times + BBC). The agency unveiled its response strategy and asked for cash to implement it. It also said there’s no need for travel bans, even though there’s still real concern about the virus spreading to Africa (New York Times + New Humanitarian).

But much of the coverage skirts around questions over how worrying this virus really is — reflecting social-political preoccupations more than it does risk.

One such angle taken by the media is the power of China’s authoritarian government. The WHO has praised the country’s response but there’s plenty of criticism in the media, including how lack of transparency has hurt the response (Financial Times + New York Times).

The case of Li Wenliang, the doctor silenced weeks ago for sounding the alarm and ended up succumbing to the disease last week, brought that to the fore. The social-political ramifications of his death were widely reported (Economist + Wall Street Journal + New York Times). Meanwhile, reports of some citizens in China taking matters into their own hands to fight censorship raised questions over why the government isn’t shutting them down (MIT Tech Review + New York Times). Others say the crisis is adding fuel to ongoing unrest in Hong Kong. US media suggest that the response by other countries in the region focuses on not provoking China.

Some took a human angle to the scrutiny of China, for example by giving voice to residents who recount what it’s like to live under quarantine in Wuhan. A first-hand account was even emailed to the editor-in-chief of The Lancet, which published an edited version.

The fact that China built and opened a new hospital in 10 days got relatively little attention. Here’s a glimpse of what building it looked like.

Then there’s the angle of how the epidemic impacts economies. One report suggested that fears around the virus led to the biggest drop in Chinese market shares in four years. There are worries about damage to global business, with SARS having set a precedent. That past experience also suggests trouble ahead for the airline industry.

A third angle is about social reactions beyond China. How the epidemic has fuelled racism has come up a few times (Financial Times + Open Democracy), including in this account of an American citizen who sees parallels with the way in which reactions to Ebola maligned people from Africa. Another worry is how the spread of misinformation is at least as dangerous as the virus itself, and how the panic could backfire. Bat soup even featured in the same paragraph as Brexit.

Uncertainty over how the virus is transmitted is an ideal set-up for colourful theories. But there’s also real work behind the scenes to find out how the disease spreads, and to answer many other questions that have to do with the real risks of this epidemic.

For instance, one theory that emerged last week is that pangolins play a role in transmission. A familiar argument that China’s wet markets need to be tackled to stop viruses that circulate in animals crossing the species barrier found a counter-argument in a report describing how these markets are a lifeline for poor people in Asia.

The race for a vaccine continues (Economist + Axios). Meanwhile, people are scrambling for cures, even experimental ones (Wall Street Journal + The Verge). And while China is looking for medicine in traditional places, doctors are reportedly getting promising results from a mix of flu and HIV drugs.

Hidden away in an article about the death of the silenced doctor was the welcome news of a drop in the number of new cases. This seems to have now been confirmed by another report. Let’s hope it’s a sign of an epidemic in decline.

When all’s said and done, if you look for it, you’ll find the coverage that simply puts what we know — and don’t know — in perspective. This is a nice explainer of what the virus is and how worried we should be. Here you’ll find the bigger picture of how infectious diseases can drive crises. A comparison to previous epidemics, and how long it took the world to detect them, highlights that we as a society can shape what happens in such crises.

This, of course, includes how we talk about them, as journalists and as citizens. As I surveyed the past week’s coverage, I thought about how much of it reflected the stories we want to tell, and the unprecedented space we have to speculate at a time when so much about this epidemic remains unknown.

Something to think about as it all continues to unfold.