Handling the pandemic, Who’s Right or Wrong? – Euro Weekly News’ political opinion from Spain

THE pandemic is on the rise both in Spain and the UK. Both countries have reported over the last few days the highest number of positive cases since March, which in turn inflicts more restrictions on our lives.

Both Boris Johnson and Pedro Sanchez, even though from opposite sides of the political spectrum, have a very similar route, trying to shape our ideas, mainly through propaganda.

Generally, both societies are scared but the difference between March and now can be seen in how the public is reacting in a very similar way.  It seems that they have been divided into two major groups; the sceptics and the government mainstream followers.

The first are scared because their fundamental rights are being cut by a wave of regulations which they consider scientifically questionable and the second are scared by the virus and believe that the trusted institutions know best how to protect our lives.

An end to the pandemic doesn’t seem to be in sight and the only options at the moment seem to be the vaccine or zero cases reported. Although there are claims that we will have the vaccine by 2021, it took many years to develop other types of jabs and the flu vaccine is only 40 to 60 per cent successful. On the other hand, PCR tests are also not reliable as they detect a protein in blood which gives many false positives and negatives. Therefore, the question arises should tests to detect new infections be stopped?

The main national media and broadcasting organisations in both countries have also contributed to the argument by the manner in which they are sensationalising the daily Covid figures. The facts seem to be made scary, to make the news more interesting and economical, which in turn makes it even harder to reach an unbiased judgement.

The outcome leaves many questions to be answered, such as, what will happen next month if the number of infections is still the same? Will more businesses have to close? How will people be able to survive?

Over the last few weeks, both groups have orchestrated strong arguments on social media platforms but no one is really in the right or wrong. Or are they?

Thank you for reading “Handling the pandemic, Who’s Right or Wrong?” You may also wish to read “Province of Malaga sees first day without Covid death in a week.“