Living on Plague Island

Summary

I have posted a number of my complaints made about BBC news coverage of Covid-19 on this website. In my assessment the BBC has shown a consistent, pro government bias throughout the pandemic and has failed in its public duty to warn the public about the continuing dangers posed by Covid-19. I and many others I know no longer watch or listen to the BBC, but it is nevertheless, worrying that many people do and trust the BBC more than many other British institutions.

Most recently the BBC has surpassed itself in that misleading biased coverage has crept into BBC Drama. A recent episode of the popular hospital drama series Casualty contained highly misleading information about the wearing of masks in healthcare settings. As usual, I and others have received highly offensive and factually inaccurate responses to our original complaints to the BBC and are pursuing our complaints further.

Context

The episode aired on BBC1 in the second week of March.

Whilst the accidental overdosing on Beta Blockers which led to the ambulance being called was clearly problematic behaviour, the wider presentation of Aishling as suffering from Covid anxiety, particularly for wearing a good quality mask, was highly problematic.

I and many other people submitted a complaint to the BBC. I majored on the factual inaccuracies running throughout the relevant scenes as I thought the BBC would not be able to wriggle out of this. How wrong I was!

Here is my complaint.

‘Your recent episode of Casualty will contribute to the discrimination faced by people who are Clinically Vulnerable to Covid and their households. This includes households like my own with someone who has had multiple illnesses, has a faulty immune system and has not responded to the Covid vaccines. The misinformation running through this episode will no doubt permeate the prejudices and ignorance of viewers and increase the abuse we are subject to for taking sensible precautions and wearing a good quality mask. 

For example:

Several scenes perpetuate the myth that masks significantly limit breathing and limit oxygen intake.  Yet there is clear evidence that they do not.I would be happy to send you the evidence on this.

Another myth is that because staff are fully vaccinated they can’t catch Covid and pass it on. This is highly misleading to viewers. Vaccines reduce the severity of the disease where people have responded to them, they do not result in immunity. UKHSA acknowledge this. 

The truth is that the pandemic is far from over. Even the WHO acknowledge we are still in a pandemic. Over 2000 people died of Covid in the first 6 weeks of 2024, nearly 2 million have long covid – and this is rising in the USA. More and more evidence is emerging by the day about how damaging Covid can be to every organ in the body. 

Clinically vulnerable families are at the sharp end in having to navigate these dangers. We are not a small group of people – there are millions of us and we all pay your license fee. Would you gaslight other minority groups in this way?

I accept that masking may make others feel uncomfortable (due to their own anxieties,) but mask wearers I know are some of the most rational and brave people I have ever met.

It would be helpful if you could produce a future episode covering these issues, for example, an ambulance attending a heart attack or stroke due to post covid issues or due to becoming reinfected with Covid?‘

On 27 March, in common with many people, I received a reply. This fails to address the factual points I raised about being fully vaccinated not providing protection from catching and passing on Covid, and about masks preventing effective breathing.

At the same time the BBC has invented a new illness called ‘post covid anxiety’ which those of us who wear masks find very offensive indeed. We are essentially presented as a lot of ‘mental cases’, not as a rational group of people who face many challenges in navigating day to day life following the lifting of Covid restrictions.

And the comment ‘we believe that the audience will understand that the storyline is not intended to represent the experiences of all people’ with ‘post covid anxiety’ is beyond belief. How is the audience meant to distinguish between Aisling and other people when the episode is littered with inaccuracies which imply that hospitals are safe, you can’t catch covid from a fully vaccinated health worker, masks damage your ability to breath and those who wear masks are anxious.

I have sent off a reply and intend to take it to Ofcom if the BBC come back with the same rubbish.

Here is my reply:

‘Your response fails to address the factual points I raised. You don’t address my point about masks.Several scenes perpetuate the myth that they limit breathing yet there is clear evidence that they do not. Indeed your response seems oblivious to the actual evidence on masking/airborne transmission/SARS2.

Several scenes perpetuate the myth that because staff are fully vaccinated they can’t catch Covid and pass it on. Vaccines reduce the severity of disease where people have responded to them, they do not result in immunity and wane in effectiveness over time. 

You fail to acknowledge my point that there are millions of people who have not developed any anti body response to the vaccines and are  therefore at a high risk of infection and falling very ill as a result. There is a mounting amount of evidence that Covid-19 damages the immune system and can cause a range of serious illnesses, and the chance of this increases the greater the number of infections. 

A recent survey of clinically vulnerable families  reported that 98% felt that healthcare is unsafe. Hospitals are full of ill people, there is often no masking, nor attempt to filter the air or test for Covid-19 in a bid to control the spread of infection.  

We wear masks because we are rational people – not because we suffer from what you call ‘post COVID anxiety’. This term is highly offensive to us and it is dangerous to imply that mask wearing is simply anxiety when heath care is so dangerous. I can assure you that most of the public do not understand why some people wear masks and this programme will only serve to fuel the abuse we face for taking sensible precautions.

In conclusion I would have expected better of an objective complaints process from the public service broadcaster and I hope your reply addresses the points of fact that I raise.’

I am aware that numerous other people have complained to the BBC about the episode and are in the process of complaining about the response. One of these people is Jane Stephenson who has published an article in West Country Voices which allows her more space over and above the BBC’s tight word limits in order to elaborate on what is wrong with the episode of Casualty. None of this will be new to regular readers of this website, but it is a very well put together article.

In particular Jane makes the additional points that:

• Covid-19 is still a significant problem in the UK and Aisling would have been at risk in a crowded, poor ventilated emergency department.
• Covid is not harmless as implied in the programme. People with underlying conditions are at significant risk and the reduced eligibility for vaccines and removal of mask mandates in hospitals has made matters far worse.
• Covid-19 is not simply a respiratory disease – it’s a multi system, multi organ disease that can leave lasting impacts for a significant proportion of people even if the initial infection was mild.
• There is now evidence that the risk of Long Covid increases they more infections you have had. That is why many people in the know take precautions even if they are not vulnerable as such.

Dr Rebecca Healey responded to the BBC on X (formerly twitter) in response to my own original complaint along the following lines which sums it up very well:

“Wearing an FFP2/3, during an ongoing airborne SARS2 pandemic, in areas with potential exposure (i.e. indoors poorly ventilated), is simply good sense. The people doing this are usually those informed of the science beyond the acute picture. Or those more vulnerable to severe acute disease themselves. This is not anxiety.

“It is arguable that in this situation, anxiety may well result from being surrounded by a public who are themselves overwhelmingly uninformed, and who actively participate in stigmatisation of appropriate health behaviours.”

Rebecca Healey on X

If we look at the evidence on mask wearing we can see how protective good quality masks are against infection from the diagram below.

Concluding Comments

My view is that the link between Covid behaviours and mental health is an issue but it is mainly something that afflicts people who carry on behaving as they did before Covid -19 and then go on to attack the Covid cautious for not behaving likewise. This is despite the evidence of the damage done and risks involved, as illustrated by the above diagram. They clearly have some significant ‘post Covid anxiety’ issues in my assessment.

Essentially, the BBC has a choice about whether to side with the Covid minimising of the government or speak the truth as a public service broadcaster in the interest of the people who pay for the service via the license fee. They seem to have chosen the former option. Our job is to ensure that they don’t get a comfortable ride. I await the BBC’s second response with interest.

Update 27 April 2024

It took a while by I, along with others have received a reply as follows:

Dear Ms Smith,

Thank you for contacting us again. We’re sorry our previous reply failed to address your concerns and please accept our apologies for the delay in replying.

Casualty has a rich history of tackling medical issues and the programme seeks professional medical advice on storylines. In this case the patient was clearly anxious and she had been given medication by her doctor to treat her anxiety as a result of COVID.  The paramedics informed her that they were vaccinated when they asked if she wanted to remove her mask to reassure her that the environment was as safe as possible.  The paramedics did not remove their masks.  Anxiety is considered one of the longer-term symptoms of Post-COVID syndrome/Long COVID, the use of the term post-COVID anxiety in this instance was not to suggest that COVID doesn’t exist but how many refer to the condition. We’re sorry for any offence this caused you.

The decision to take a storyline in a certain direction is to create engaging drama and certainly not promoting a particular agenda.  These scenes represented the actions and views of a particular set of fictional characters and we believe our audience understands that fictional characters’ experiences in dramas are not always intended to be representative of all people going through similar situations. We appreciate that people choose to wear face masks for a variety of reasons and this storyline was not a comment on these people, nor was it a comment on the spread of COVID-19. 

We’re sorry for any upset this storyline may have caused you, this was never our intention and we have shared your concerns with the programme makers.  

Thanks again for getting in touch.  Should you wish to pursue your compliant further there are details below on how you can do this.

Kind regards,

BBC Complaints Team

Assessment

These are fundamental factual points that we need to nail if we are to make progress in campaigning for change, in particular for the introduction of proper ventilation and air filtration in medical settings. New important research published in recent days underlines the importance of this. It shows that as well as the well known fact that high CO2 levels means a higher concentration of rebreathed air in a space (hence higher infection risk), but high CO2 in itself helps the virus particles to stay alive and remain infectious for longer.

After a long saga of the BBC sending me a link that did not work in order to escalate the complaint up the BBC chain I decided to complain to Ofcom. I have included the previous BBC responses and a new short paragraph within their character limit as follows:

BBC Casualty

CAS-7783029-M5T5H8 

The response fails to address the factual point I raised about face masks.Several scenes perpetuate the myth that they limit breathing yet there is clear evidence they do not. There is extensive evidence that they provide significant protection in  crowded indoor environments where the air is not filtered and ventilation is poor. 

My second point of fact is that several scenes perpetuate the myth that because staff are fully vaccinated they can’t catch Covid and pass it on to patients. This is factually incorrect. Vaccines reduce the severity of disease where people have responded to them, they do not result in immunity and they do wane in effectiveness over time.  There is again a huge amount of research evidence here which I would be more than happy to send to you.