Living on Plague Island

The BBC struck again on Sunday 30 June with an article on their news website about the current Covid wave. This has much in common with previous BBC articles, except it does not mention the previous BBC stance that Covid is now a routine winter virus. But I guess that publishing this in the UK mid summer would have looked a tad odd!

I took time out from campaigning for the UK Labour Party in the forthcoming General Election in order to complain. I will update this blog in due course with the reply, though given the BBC track record I am not holding my breath in anticipation…

Here is my complaint.

The standard of journalism in this article is abysmal to the extent that you are failing in your duty as the public services broadcaster to provide accurate and balanced commentary.  

You allude to the fact that we have little data to gauge the extent of the current rise in levels of Covid infection, but you fail to mention that many countries that do continue to collect data through wastewater analysis  are reporting a significant spike in the level of infections driven by the KP.3 variant, and all the indications are that infections in the UK are higher than this time last year.  

I have no idea where your figure of 1 in every 25,000 people infected comes from as the majority of experts estimate the rate of infection in England to be somewhere between 1 in every 50 and 1 in every 100. 

It should surely be your duty to bring in a range of experts to comment on the latest situation, yet you have chosen to present a one sided biased perspective from someone (Paul Hunter) who has consistently minimised the risk of repeated Covid infections despite the mounting evidence on how Covid impacts on every part of the body. You will be aware that there are a range of top scientists who disagree profoundly with Hunter  but you choose to continue to ignore them.  

The false reassurances you provide are very dangerous. Have you stopped to consider the implications of your continuing poor standard of reporting on the declining levels of vaccine take up? Or on the efforts of clinically vulnerable people to live their lives safely without abuse? Or the growing numbers of people suffering from long covid (well over 2 million according to ONS – including 110,000 children). You don’t even report the growing pressures on the NHS accurately nor that a number of NHS hospitals have recently reintroduced compulsory mask wearing due to soaring rates of Covid infection. 

We know how to control the spread of Covid with non intrusive measures but a necessary pre-requisite is that public bodies and others need you to start portraying the facts accurately. 

Update 4 July

I have yet to receive a reply from the BBC, however, they have quietly removed the reference of 1 in every 25,000 from the article on their news website. This of course is pretty pointless given that the article was published on 30 June and very few people will see the changes.

On 2 July the Guardian and other newspapers, including the Daily Mirror, published stories about the summer wave. The Guardian piece does cover the views of Paul Hunter but also brings in comment from Professor Danny Altman of Imperial College who said:

“We’re far from the terror of an unvaccinated, vulnerable population in 2020, but your FLiRt infection can still lay you really low for a week, carries a significant risk of leading to long-term, disabling long Covid, or could have a significant impact if you or the next person you infect is in a highly vulnerable group. We’re far from a state where this is ‘just like a cold’ and should just be ignored.”

I and others await the response of the BBC with interest.

Update 20 July

The BBC replied to my complaint a few days ago whilst I was on holiday. As per usual the reply is totally inadequate and displays significant statistical incompetence, fails to grasp my point that whereas England has next to no data, other countries do and the data was (is) showing a significant surge. As with my previous complaints the BBC will not acknowledge that the subject of long covid is in any way linked to the failure to control surges in the levels of infection.

‘Dear Ms Smith 

Thanks for contacting us about the BBC News article, ‘Are we in a summer Covid wave?’

Our article sought to explore claims of a summer Covid wave, through analysing data as well as presenting expert views.

The article states that it is “difficult to tell” if there has been a spike in infections because the rate of testing has reduced since the pandemic and that “many cases of Covid are not being recorded in the general population”.

We have added data which specifies that 4.37 out of 100,000 patients admitted to hospital on 26th June “had symptoms or were sick enough” to be tested for Covid, and consequently found to be coronavirus positive. We have also added that “this figure does not reflect the Covid rate among all hospital patients” and is therefore likely to be higher.

For clarity, we have also removed a line referencing the hospital data, which stated that around one in every 25,000 people had Covid on 26th June. 

We have added a note of clarification at the bottom in light of these changes.

Medical experts also shared their views, with Prof Hunter stating that “severity of illness associated with Covid has gone down a lot” and that “ultimately it’s going to become another cause of the common cold”. He does not suggest that infection with Covid is currently like a common cold for everyone. 

Meanwhile, Dr Jamie Lopez Bernal provided infection control advice, including to avoid “contact with other people, especially those who are more vulnerable”. The article makes clear that some people are “more likely to fall seriously ill if they were to catch Covid, such as elderly people or those with weakened immune systems.”

We did not include Covid statistics for other countries or all the UK nations, because the article is primarily about England. We also did not include data on wastewater analysis because it is no longer officially tested for Covid.

Lastly, the BBC has covered Long Covid as a topic in its own right extensively over the course of years, in accordance with the commitment in our editorial guidelines to reflect a wide range of perspectives “over an appropriate timeframe so that no significant strand of thought is under-represented or omitted.”

We’d like to thank you for taking the time to contact us and rest assured your complaint has been shared directly with senior editors at he BBC News Website.

If you’d like to understand how your complaint is handled at the BBC, you might find it helpful to watch this short film https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/complaints. It explains the BBC’s process for responding to complaints and how we share the feedback we receive.

Kind regards, 

BBC Complaints Team‘
www.bbc.co.uk/complaints

Everyone I am aware of has received the same reply – word for word – from the BBC.