Category: Opinion piece

An article in which the writer expresses their personal opinion, typically one which is controversial or provocative, about a particular issue or item of news.

From Guinea Pigs to Guinness – how do we rise to the challenge of meaningful engagement?

by Diana Evans |

When you say the word ‘engagement’ everyone thinks about it a bit differently, probably because it is a totally subjective matter in the first place. I get immense joy from watching someone feeding 50 squealing guinea pigs on Facebook while my husband looks on emotionless, not a flicker. However, there’s no denying that mass engagement is possible, look at Handforth Parish Council, their December meeting’s ‘best bits’ has now had over 3 million views on YouTube and sparked renewed interest in local politics.

So what is it? What makes something engaging and ultimately memorable. When I thought about articulating this for a workshop I was running recently, I was swiftly taken back to the Guinness ‘Surfer’ advert, (some will remember). I was 19 at the time and utterly mesmerised – I think it was a mixture of powerful music, crazy creative and passion – I was young and full of energy and it made me want to get out there and take on the world. Interestingly the creative for that advert didn’t do that well in focus groups but the team had such a ‘profound belief’ in what they had created that they took a leap of faith and it went on to win more awards than any other commercial in 1999 and in 2002 was voted the “Best ad of all time” in a poll conducted by Channel 4 and The Sunday Times.

So what do the Guinness ad, guinea pigs and Handforth all have in common? It’s all about emotion. When we are engaged, we have an emotional response, be it happiness, sadness, frustration or anything in between. It’s not just that, it’s a clever balance of emotion and relevance. Something that presses up against our own beliefs and experiences. The Guinness advert was exciting, I was a bored teenager, ready to take on the world. Handforth….well I have actually been a Parish Councillor so enough said there, but I suspect for many the heady mixture of  Vicar of Dibley style local politics alongside the shift we’ve all had to make to online meetings made it funny and relevant across the board for so many. Not to mention the plain fact that right now, we all need a good laugh.

So we need to generate an emotional response and connection but what then? Ultimately as communications professionals we are trying to effect change or action.  When we consider engagement in the healthcare setting we face even more challenges, the behavioural intricacies and beliefs that sit around our individual health are layered and complex – look at medication adherence, a global issue that WHO has claimed may ‘have a far greater impact on the health of the population than any improvement in specific medical treatments’. Adherence is a hugely complex behavioural challenge, it’s not just about ‘forgetting to take a tablet’, it is a highly individualised, multi-faceted picture. Engaging a patient to create an environment for belief shift that could lead to a change in behaviour involves a matrix approach that takes into account their own personal experience and beliefs as well as external influences. For example, suffering myself from migraines, I’m more likely to engage on an emotional level as a working parent than a ‘migraine sufferer’ because I feel most frustrated about suffering from migraines when it renders me unable to play with my children or finish some work.  We recognise this and factor it into the approach we take at Makara. Taking the time to benchmark our audiences at a deeper level and using this to inform our craft.

The reality is, when it comes to healthcare, if we really want to effect change we need to be a bit more honest….are we really exploring deep enough to make a difference?

The Room Where It Happens – What I’ve learned from bringing my home and work life closer together

by Vicky Laker |

It’s a Thursday afternoon and I am on a Teams call doing some internal training.  The front door opens with a gust of wind and rain. It’s Mr B and the dog returning from the park.  I mute my microphone, so my colleagues won’t hear the sound of man and dog shaking off wet clothing and signal to Mr B to hold the dog up so I can see her belly. She is presented to me like the newborn Simba at the beginning of The Lion King and, as I thought, she is filthy. She needs washing off in the kitchen sink, located directly in the line of sight of my laptop camera. I switch the video feed off as nobody needs to witness this, or the inevitable escape of the dog and the ensuing chase around the house.

Whilst this is small fry compared to the man who was gatecrashed by his kids whilst live on the BBC, the fact remains that we are nearly a year into our intermittent lockdown, and home and work life have become inextricably combined. So how do you keep the balance between the two when living in a small two-up two-down terrace in the middle of Salisbury and your dining table-turned-desk dominates the downstairs living area?

As a senior project co-ordinator within the Makara client services team, I have always worked from our base in Salisbury, unlike many of the account-handling team who are more used to agile working. If anything, I have really enjoyed being able to move seamlessly from home to work and back again.   There’s no forgetting your lunch. No last-minute dash to the office. No realising that you have put on completely inappropriate shoes that you are now going to have to struggle through the day wearing. But how do you put structure back in a day where you may be spending 24/7 in the same set of four rooms? 

I have given myself a schedule, which means having to leave the house every morning before starting work. I have tried to implement some of the office routine into the home space – screen breaks are still important but instead of checking the stationery supplies, I can fill up the bird feeder or put away the remaining bits of last night’s washing up. On my lunchbreak, instead of walking through town, I pass the hour enjoying one of my favourite hobbies – cooking.

Filling the gap created by the hum of the office has been harder. I’m a bit of an introvert, but as much as I like my own company, it is hard for me to work alone.  I miss the chit chat, the spontaneous conversation, the background noise. Some of these gaps are now filled with an early morning coffee with a colleague over Teams, while others are filled with podcasts, or listening to the Hamilton soundtrack… AGAIN (my poor neighbours!).

And sometimes work life bleeds into home life.  But I am a multi-tasker, and it is not unusual for me to be checking my emails whilst simultaneously feeding the dog and warming up for my run. Occasionally I work later than I may have done if I was still in the office but there’s no more getting hangry! I can still have my dinner at 6pm, even if it is being eaten “al desko” whilst Mr B watches the news on the sofa next to me.

Will I miss working from home when this is all over? Yes, a bit. All those funny little pockets of time throughout the day when you are waiting for the kettle to boil or for the microwave to ding have been filled up with small tasks – emptying the bin or putting the laundry away. Incorporating them into the gaps in my workday have meant that they are not there waiting for me when I clock off.  My home life has been enriched by the coexistence of my work life. And in the evening, I can shut down my laptop and segue from desk to sofa in five short steps. However, there will come a time when it will be good to have our living room back – and maybe even eat a meal at our dining table. And it will be good to get back into the office again – I miss laughing so loud the Finance team can hear me in the office next door. Perhaps I’m not so much of an introvert after all.

Leading the way or leaping into the unknown? UK to press ahead with COVID-19 challenge trial

by Matt Wheeler |

In mid-February, it was confirmed that a selection of up to 90 young, healthy volunteers, unlikely to develop serious illness, would be deliberately infected with COVID-19 in a UK study1. This will be the world’s first study of this type for COVID-19, and has been under consideration since the pandemic began.

The UK has ostensibly done nothing by halves during the last year – hit overwhelmingly hard by cases, pressure on the National Health Service, and, tragically, lost lives, it is now seemingly the poster child for rapid vaccination roll-out. As of February 20th 2021, almost 17 million2 people have received the first dose of a coronavirus vaccine in the United Kingdom.

The UK government appears determined to remain at the forefront; this challenge study has already received £33.6 million3 in investment.

In the first stage – known as the virus characterisation study4 – researchers will investigate the required viral load to cause infection in this group (using the ‘original’ strain that has been circulating in the UK since March 2020). Following this, a small number of volunteers will be given vaccine candidates proven safe in clinical trials, and then exposed to COVID-19, with the aim of identifying the most effective vaccines and accelerating their development.

The history of challenge trials

The first challenge trial is perhaps the best known5, as a staple of school biology syllabuses. In 1796, Edward Jenner created the earliest version of a smallpox vaccine by taking a sample from a cowpox sore and putting it into the skin of his gardener’s eight-year-old son. He then deliberately exposed the child to smallpox, but he did not become infected. Not likely that this would be ethically acceptable today!

Jenner went on to test the method in over 6,000 people – and 200 years later, smallpox vaccines allowed for the eradication of the disease in the global population.

During the 20th and 21st centuries, challenge trials have been conducted in influenza, cholera and malaria, among others. They have also been under consideration for the Zika virus that emerged as a major health crisis in Brazil and other South American and Caribbean countries in 2015.

Why conduct challenge trials?

Challenge trials are not a required element of every vaccination development program. However, there are a number of factors that may make conducting such a study desirable for a specific disease6:

  • Animal models are imprecise in reflecting human disease caused by the infection
  • The disease has an acute onset, and can be readily and objectively detected
  • There are existing effective treatments that can be administered at an appropriate time to prevent significant illness, and prevent risk of death
  • There is a significant time imperative to develop understanding of the disease and vaccines/treatments for it – clearly the case with COVID-19

Ethical considerations

There will inevitably be questions as to the requirement for such trials for COVID-19:

  • Why would anybody agree to be deliberately infected with a virus that, as yet, has no effective rescue therapy?
  • Do we need to take the risks when we now have a number of approved vaccines being rolled out?
  • Whilst young people may be at the lowest risk of serious illness and death, some people suffer with debilitating symptoms for many months (‘long-COVID’), which may not be reversible
  • Considering the current lack of full understanding of COVID-19, how does this challenge trial sit with the medical principle of ‘do no harm’?
  • If a participant becomes seriously ill, will significant damage be done to public trust in science at a critical time, when vaccine hesitancy is already prevalent in some communities?

Human challenge trials are not new, and hold promise in building our knowledge of COVID-19. However, the ethical implications are many, and must be carefully considered.

  1. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56097088
  2. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/vaccinations
  3. http://www.pmlive.com/pharma_news/uk_to_launch_world-first_covid-19_human_challenge_study_in_the_next_few_weeks_1363536
  4. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/worlds-first-coronavirus-human-challenge-study-receives-ethics-approval-in-the-uk
  5. https://www.1daysooner.org/past
  6. https://www.who.int/biologicals/expert_committee/Human_challenge_Trials_IK_final.pdf

Searching for the ‘silver lining’

by Matt Wheeler |

2020 will not, for the vast majority, be looked back on as a good year.

At the time of writing in mid-November, over 50 million cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed globally, with more than 1 million deaths. These are stark figures, the signature of a virus that has torn across the planet, and is still rife in many communities.

However, there is finally (seemingly) light at the end of the tunnel. Phase III vaccine results are beginning to emerge, with levels of efficacy exceeding even the most optimistic predictions when development began. Submission to regulatory authorities is imminent, and there is hope that the mammoth task of roll-out may even begin before the end of the year. Perhaps by mid-2021, life may look more ‘normal’.

It is human nature to look for the silver lining in situations, no matter how bleak. The question is, can there be any ‘silver lining’ to a scenario like this one? There is certainly no equivalence to be drawn in terms of good and bad outcomes, no disputing the horrendous toll that the disease has taken. But is there anything we can learn? Any scraps of positivity that may be useful for humanity ‘post-COVID’?

Public health awareness

  • Hygiene has never been more important. The concept of keeping your hands clean to minimise the risk of catching bugs is not new, but is now at the forefront of minds
  • This renewed focus also extends to educating children. WHO has partnered with Peppa Pig to launch the ‘Wash Wash Wash Your Hands’ singalong video, which, thanks to my niece, is now indelibly burnt onto my brain – although, that’s the whole point…

Innovation

Collaboration and altruism in the pharmaceutical industry

  • In the search for a vaccine, big pharma companies have joined forces, including partnerships between Pfizer and BioNTech, and GSK and Sanofi respectively, accelerating the development process and giving hope of more than one viable product being made available
  • More broadly, companies are using knowledge gained from decades of experience with similar viruses to pilot treatments, donating compounds formerly tested on other viral pathogens such as Ebola and HIV, and exploring technologies for upscaling production of any successful vaccine candidate

Family time

We all hope that pharmaceutical innovation and public health policy are able to control the pandemic as quickly as possible. In the meantime, perhaps we can take some solace in the human capacity to adapt, and, ultimately, overcome.

What’s in a tweet? Top tips for social listening

by Makara |

It may sound obvious, but it’s often overlooked: a key element of any communications activity is listening. Without it, the chances of engaging with our target audience is significantly reduced.

The same goes for social communications. For a social campaign to be successful, you need to listen to what’s going on in the social stratosphere. Think of some of the most successful social media campaigns to date: Always’ #LikeAGirl, or WWF’s #EndangeredEmoji; they didn’t happen by accident. They came about in response to careful research and listening. The brands listened to what users respond to, who the influencers are, what matters to them and which channels of communication resonate the most.

There are a few things to consider before conducting a social listening exercise:

  1. Have the right tools

For any social listening programme it’s recommended that a social analytics tool is used. At Makara we use a platform called Meltwater, but there are many others out there with various capabilities and price options. The biggest advantage of these platforms is they do much of the hard work for you, analysing the data and reporting it into meaningful graphs and visuals that you can then mine for insights.

  1. Choose your keywords carefully

The crux of social listening is ensuring that the keywords in your search are relevant to what you’re looking for. This is another big advantage of social listening platforms; you can perform much more sophisticated searches, using Boolean queries which allow you to include and exclude certain keywords. See a basic example below:

((“diabetes” AND “kidneys”) OR (“diabetes” AND “heart failure”))

This will show results that include posts mentioning both diabetes and kidneys, as well as posts showing both diabetes and heart failure.

  1. Identify the keywords you don’t want

It’s more than likely that your first search will bring up many results that aren’t relevant, especially on social media where users tend to go off-topic! This is where the “NOT” search function comes in handy.

For example, if your diabetes search above brings up many results on Type 1 diabetes, but you’re only interested in Type 2 diabetes, you can refine this search as below:

((“diabetes” AND “kidneys”) OR (“diabetes” AND “heart failure”)) NOT (“type 1”)

You can add as many exclusion words as you like, and you’ll find that the more you chip away at your search, the more refined your results will become.

  1. Get your hands dirty

Sophisticated social listening platforms are incredibly useful at finding quantitative data effectively and reporting it in a meaningful and visually appealing way, but sometimes it’s worth doing some extra digging of your own. What this means is going through the results and really looking at individual posts. Maybe someone has spoken about a personal experience that is particularly relevant to your campaign. These nuggets of information and little anecdotes are just as important as the overarching quantitative results. They can provide the real insight that you need to inform the campaign message. It might even prompt you to refine your search further, looking into this particular aspect of the topic that you’ve discovered.

  1. Know when to stop

The world of social media is vast, and you can find yourself searching forever. But your campaign will only need a certain chunk of insights. Spending months on end gathering insights and evidence is generally not feasible and not always helpful. If you find there’s nothing out there in the first few weeks, then that’s a telling insight in itself. Give yourself two or three weeks to set up your audit, do your research and record your findings. Then call it a day and use the great insights you have! 

Stress in the time of a pandemic – what you need to know

by Makara |

Stress can often be one of those things that creeps up on you. Before you know it, you are feeling tired, worn out, irritable and enveloped by a sense of melancholy. Change is normally stressful and, in these exceptional times of global uncertainty, even more so. Coronavirus is impacting all of us. The world as we know it has changed and we are dealing with the fallout in our personal and professional lives. Stress can make existing problems worse and lead to mental health issues. And because it can have such a negative impact on our wellbeing, we need to be able to recognise it and understand what we can do to manage it. So, as we come to the end of Stress Awareness Month, we thought we’d share some things we’ve found useful in dealing with stress.

Signs to look out for: 

  • Problems with sleeping
  • Feeling irritable
  • Lack of energy
  • Headaches
  • Changes in sex drive
  • Anxiety
  • Overeating or undereating
  • Social withdrawal

There are steps we can take to help ourselves during lockdown:

  • Getting into a routine is very important; with everything changing around you it is good to have something you can control and that will keep you engaged. An ongoing and absorbing activity can help provide something you can do regularly to alleviate stress. Maybe now’s the time to try and read that book, write that story, knit that jumper – get creative!
  • Maintaining contact with friends and family is important for you and for them. People have adapted to changing circumstances and found creative ways to keep in contact. Try a family quiz night on Zoom, a virtual book club, virtual workouts with friends, HouseParty games… at Makara we have introduced a virtual pub towards the end of the week, so we all have some time out to socialise.
  • Physical exercise really does help relieve stress and gets those happy endorphins flowing. Just a small amount every day will make a noticeable difference to how you are feeling.
  • A simple breathing exercise is worth practising if you feel stressed. You can do it anywhere, anytime, lying down or sitting up. Take a full deep breath through your nose, hold it for a count of three and release slowly through your mouth. Repeat ten times. You will feel more relaxed.

BE WELL AND CARRY ON 

Remember there is lots of support out there. Here are just a few useful sources of information:

Business as usual while working from home: Tips for embracing agile working

by Louise Sharp |

As coronavirus dominates the news, and governments make decisions about protecting our health and wellbeing, many companies are imposing travel bans and recommending a work from home policy.

Agile working models are becoming increasingly popular and, amidst this current health situation, I have been reflecting on the pros and cons of working from home and the journey that we have been on at @MakaraHealth, where we have been employing a largely remote-working set-up from the start.

It’s all about mindset

Having had many conversations over the years about agile working, my honest reflection is that it is quite simply down to mindset. If you want it to work, you can make it work. I feel just as connected to my talented team at Makara when I am working remotely, as when I am with them face-to-face. Here are my learnings from employing an agile working model:

1.Trust and empower people

Just because you can’t see your colleagues, co-workers or boss, does not mean you or they aren’t working! Presenteeism is hopefully becoming a thing of the past but, as working from home becomes more prevalent, we need to really think about our tone of voice when we talk about it. All too often ‘oh yes, they are working from home’ is delivered dismissively as if that person is less committed as a result of location. A culture of trust and empowerment is key to making the most of the benefits of working from home.

2. Stay connected and turn your video link on

You can be just as present while working remotely if you stay connected. Simply dialling into Zoom or WebEx meetings with your video link live so people can see you creates the next best thing to a face-to-face in-office meeting.

3. Make an effort

When working from home, you might not have that conversation in the corridor or at the coffee station but, with a little effort, structure and planning, you can have even more productive meetings. Set agendas, put shorter meetings into the diary (try 15 mins rather than 30), make the most of the amazing technology we all have access to. Agree how working from home will work best for your team and make an effort to stay in touch. For many, having the social interaction is a key part of their daily routine, so make it happen.

4. Take regular breaks

Without the distraction of an office environment, productivity can often be higher. However, taking regular breaks is just as important. It’s easy just to stay at your computer all day when you are working from home so try setting yourself reminders in your diary to take short breaks. If possible, get out at lunchtime, or work from different rooms in the house for a change of scenery. Finally, message or call co-workers to ensure you strike a balance – we’ve found that Slack helps us feel more connected as a team and it allows for the more informal catch ups we might otherwise miss.

5. Enjoy it!

Above all else, enjoy it. Working from home saves the commute and adds back precious time into your day.

#agileworking #healthcarecomms #workfromhome #businessasusual #agilethinking #coronavirus

The power of clarity in medical communications – practical tips for elegant copy

by Gillian Wain |

In medical communications, when trying to indicate a formal relationship between ourselves and a client or KOL, it’s all too easy to fall into the trap of using pompous words or too many of them. However, using obscure or long words to impress (even unwittingly) usually has the opposite effect.

Your reader is likely to prefer Anglo-Saxon words to Latinate ones, as they are more natural sounding and less pompous.

For example:

‘We will get together at 6pm’ rather than ‘We will congregate at 6pm’ (‘to congregate’ is the Latin version of the Anglo-Saxon ‘to get together’)

However, it’s important to make sure that the structure and grammar are sound so that it’s clear that an educated choice to use Anglo-Saxon words has been made.

Something else that tends to creep in when trying to be formal is using too many words:

‘owing to the fact that’ – can be replaced with ‘because’ or ‘since’

‘had occasion to be’ – can be replaced with ‘was’

‘in this day and age’ or ‘at the present time’ – can be simplified to ‘now’ or ‘today’

or old-fashioned phrases:

amongst – can be replaced with ‘among’

prior to – replaced with ‘before’ and

whilst – replaced with ‘while’

When reading written work or emails through, it’s also worth looking out for obscure/stuffy words and overcomplicated phrases to see if there is a way to express them more elegantly without sounding too casual.

For example:

‘The meeting is scheduled to take place in London on Friday 14 March.’

Could be written as

‘The meeting will be in London on Friday 14 March.’

And

‘For your convenience I have set up an online poll and would be very grateful if you could indicate your interest in attending by completing your availability. Please click here to complete the poll: http://www.onlinepoll.com/pc82m2ypkd3xgwy2.’

Could be written as

‘To assess availability of participants, please complete this poll: http://www.onlinepoll.com/pc82m2ypkd3xgwy2.’

At Makara Health we employ senior medical writers with at least 10 years of writing experience who you can be sure will get the tone right. We also have a structured QC process on everything we write to ensure consistency and clarity. However, regardless of experience, it never hurts to ask yourself – could this be written more simply? Will I say more with less?

The Year of the Nurse: Why we need to engage with the nursing community in 2020

by Helen Laurence |

2020 is the World Health Organisation’s Year of the Nurse and the Midwife. In med comms it is generally acknowledged that nurses represent an important target audience. Regular contact with a good nurse specialist can make the difference for patients struggling with asthma, arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease and myriad other long-term conditions. Educated, empathetic and driven, there can be no doubt that nurses have a pivotal role to play in patient care.

Why is it then that they are rarely top of the list when it comes to communications strategies? Why do GPs or consultants always seem to trump nurses when it comes to defining the target audiences? While it’s difficult to say for sure, the following reasons may all play a role:

  1. Nurses are not the main prescribers. Likely the number one reason and there is certainly a strong rationale for prioritising GPs or consultants. However, nurses increasingly share prescribing responsibilities and, those that don’t, are often trusted advisors to the prescribers themselves. Although they may not always play a key role in diagnosis – nurses are involved in ongoing management and treatment reviews. They are also the ones giving a positive feedback loop to consultants when they see the benefits a new therapeutic option has brought to one of their patients.
  2. An unconscious assumption that nurses don’t understand data. I’ve often sat in meetings where a GP or consultant has said something along the lines of “I don’t think nurses are interested in the data” or “I’m not sure nurses will understand that”. Now, while a nursing role does require a focus on clinical delivery, in my experience nurses often relish the opportunity to learn about the data behind a treatment, even if that means giving up their personal time. Developing the right format in which to share data with nurses in a way that is relevant for them is a smart approach and I’ve seen this work well when our clients have consulted with nurses directly and developed bespoke education based on their insights.
  3. A belief that nurses are already too busy. Nurses do have heavy workloads, however, they are also passionate about what they do. Like teaching, nursing is a vocation and it never ceases to amaze and impress me how much time nurses are willing to invest in initiatives that they feel will benefit the wider community and improve things for their patients. Working on initiatives with peers can also be a way for nurses to boost their professional development. Seeking nurse input early and being realistic about time commitments is a good way to ensure that this important group of professionals has a stake in a communications strategy. Better to ask than overlook this important HCP audience.

Building strong relationships with nurses can pay dividends for a company’s reputation in the longer term, as several of our clients have seen with their own bespoke educational nurse programmes. Nurses are fantastically well placed to change things at the coal face. A trusted advisor to consultants; a barometer for patient behaviour and trends; a force for change in practice at a local level. If you want to get something done, ask a busy person. If you want to impact patient care, ask a nurse.

The evolving story of coronavirus and the media

by Makara |

A couple of weeks’ ago, if someone had said the word “corona” you’d probably be thinking about that free-living summer beverage while you struggle through Dry January. Now, almost everyone exposed to the news will associate it with the SARS-like virus that started in Wuhan, China. In just 12 days, the number of confirmed cases has increased from 60 to nearly 10,000, and deaths have risen from 2 to 213. The media is updating us daily, giving higher figures and increases in the number of countries affected with each day.

It’s interesting to see how the media reports on something that’s evolving so quickly over time, when even the World Health Organization hasn’t known the full scale of the problem. Language has been fairly standard for this type of story, with phrases like “deadly”, “death toll surges” and “evacuations”. Seems quite strong for something that’s in the same viral family as the common cold.

We’ve seen this before, with the 2003 SARS outbreak and the 2009 Swine Flu pandemic – but in 2020, daily news just isn’t enough. It’s assumed we want minute-by-minute updates: new figures, ‘has it hit the UK?’, ‘have they stopped flights from China?’ – especially with many flocking to Twitter to consume the news as it happens.

Public Health England has been publishing updates every day at 2pm and, in contrast, its communication is pragmatic and reassuring, despite containing increasingly alarming figures and outlining tighter measures being taken by the UK government.

Health comms professionals are only too aware that unless a story is shocking, tapping into our emotions and vulnerabilities in a big way, it’s less likely to see the light of day. As a result, important stories about diseases that impact fewer readers or have a lower profile are unlikely to be of interest to national media. When the Ebola virus first hit, the national media were alive with fear because it had the potential for mass devastation – we thought it might be airborne at one point. As soon as it was under control and only affecting certain developing countries, the papers went quiet. Last year, a life-saving vaccine was approved – but the national media had moved on.

The media are only reporting what is deemed to be in the biggest public interest – but is it time we started questioning what that is? What if some readers would welcome a less generalist, less sensational approach to breaking news? The constant barrage of round-the-clock updates can certainly feel overwhelming.

One of the most worrying properties of the coronavirus is its 14-day incubation period, during which there are no symptoms. It will therefore be interesting to see how the story evolves further over the next few weeks. It seems inevitable that we’ll be faced with the “first UK case of coronavirus” stories that hit the papers, and the close monitoring of its travels will continue. Much is still unknown, and it’s a waiting game for reassurance and appropriate action. If you’re worried, try not to drink in the alarmist language too much, don’t forget about Public Health England and its useful updates and, if in doubt, keep washing your hands!