Right in the centre - Many in the media have failed us

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Published on Friday, November 27, 2020

By Ken Waddell

Neepawa Banner & Press

After nine grinding months of daily death count statistics, there are some media types coming to some realizations. Among those realizations, the most tragic one is that the efforts of governments across Canada and around the world are not working to control C-19. After all the lockdowns and fond hopes of bending the curve, few places in the world are winning the battle. The larger the centre and the more closely packed the population, the more people are dying. The sad fact appears to be that we are not winning the battle.

That said, the overall death rates are not as high as some predicted (yet) and the overall annual death rate may not be as high as we were told to fear.

The constant stream of numbers about deaths, hospitalizations, ICU cases and recoveries is only part of the story.

And this is where the media have failed. Instead of constantly barking at governments about who has done what and who failed to do that, the media, with all their resources, all their abilities to investigate solutions, has failed miserably.  Newspapers, TV stations, web sites and radio have all hammered endlessly at spewing out the stats fed to them by the government. The daily death count has become a morbid benchmark for the media who simply pass on the stats assuming they have somehow done their job. They haven’t. Many media types will protest and have protested, that it is not their job to come up with the solutions. But it is their job to identify the possible solutions and shed light on them. In a time of danger, when there is little to lose by exploring ideas, media should have pulled out all the stops to show us there is hope and there may be a solution to C-19 some day.

Many people are hoping for a vaccine and that seems like a good idea. However, there are many who don’t want a vaccine, pointing to how sick one can become after getting the flu vaccine shot. Personally, I have heard from many who have been quite ill after getting the flu shot.

But it’s more than those things that the media have missed. It’s the possible solutions that they have missed as well.

For example, some possible solutions that I have found or been told about are as follows. A local doctor says that the use of nebulizers has been used for asthma sufferers and for treating viruses for years. They reportedly use properly and highly diluted Hydrogen Peroxide and a saline solution. The resulting solution is nebulized and it is an already approved method for asthma.

Then, just last week a man named Grant Rigby from Killarney notified us and said he has seen research that shows that virus-infected droplets of moisture spread farther and faster in dry air. It seems that maintaining 40 to 60 per cent humidity would be a good idea and he calls for building code and building operation recommendations be put in place. I bet that nobody has checked air quality or humidity in a seniors’ home in a coon’s age. Even if they did, does anyone know the optimum level? I bet that  spaces, especially those heated with gas furnaces, are way drier than 60 per cent humidity.

There are countless studies that show administering Zinc and/or Vitamin D makes a huge difference in fighting off virus infections. What are the nutrition standards for hospitals and care homes? Are media looking at that? No, they are  too busy bashing meat and milk in our diets to have time to actually look at real nutrition. Why isn’t the mainstream media promoting these things? Why isn’t the CBC using the $2.5 million a day the taxpayers send them to research some solutions? Oh right, I forget, they are too busy criticizing government and health officials and promoting every crack-pot society-changing theory that comes out of the social studies classes at universities.

For sure, governments have lagged behind all over the world on the C-19 deal, but the media has sure been behind as well. And the media will howl it’s not up to them to come up with solutions. They aren’t the elected officials. Think it through folks, we are all responsible to come up with solutions instead of just pressing our butts into the recliner and watching the daily death toll stats.

Media, politicians, civil servants, all of us, we have a duty to search and learn as opposed to just accepting the daily noise.

Disclaimer: The writer serves as a volunteer chair of the Manitoba Community Newspaper Association. The views expressed in this column are the writer’s personal views and are not to be taken as being  the view of the MCNA board or Banner & Press staff.

Correction: In my column this week, I incorrectly said Hydrogen Peroxide could be used to treat asthma. What should have been said was that Pharmaceutical Grade Hydrogen Peroxide in a diluted saline solution had been used in private practises and clinics for a long time to combat bacterial and viral infections.