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As cases of the new coronavirus increase in the United States, a relentless news cycle and false information are spiking fears, leading people to take extreme measures to regain a sense of control over their health. Health experts explain how to keep yourself calm.

Our analysis: The 'recurring themes' of disease outbreaks

Reports of the new coronavirus, which causes a disease known as COVID-19, first surfaced in early December 2019 in Wuhan, China. As of Wednesday morning, officials reported more than 121,800 cases of COVID-19 globally. Officials said as of Wednesday morning there had been at least 4,381 deaths linked to the new coronavirus, and all but 1,219 occurred in mainland China.

In China, the number of newly reported cases of COVID-19 has slowed. But the number of newly reported cases outside of China has more than tripled over the past week and a half. In the United States, state and federal officials as of Wednesday morning reported 1,015 confirmed or presumed positive cases of COVID-19, up from 231 on Friday. So far, 31 U.S. deaths have been linked to the new coronavirus.

As the number of COVID-19 cases grow, the global economy has tanked, stores have been ransacked, and people are hoarding medical supplies.

Given the situation, it's "understandable that people would be frightened," according to Quartz. COVID-19 is spreading, there is no treatment or vaccine, and its true mortality rate is still unclear.

However, while older people and those with certain existing medical conditions have a reason to be concerned, the anxiety spreading among the general population is "disproportionate to the risk posed by COVID-19 as we understand it today," according toQuartz.

Health experts have noted that the vast majority of people who are diagnosed with COVID-19 will develop mild symptoms that won't require hospitalization and others will be asymptomatic.

According to psychologist David DeSteno, the reason people are so afraid of the new coronavirus, despite the limited risk, is a "mix of miscalibrated emotion and limited knowledge" about the virus.

The "non-stop media cycle" surrounding the virus isn't helping to quell people's fears, according to Quartz, especially given that people are prone to "availability bias," meaning we give more weight to the information we can immediately recall.

"As news about the virus's toll in China stokes our fears, it makes us not only more worried than we need [to] be about contracting it, but also more susceptible to embracing fake claims and potentially problematic, hostile or fearful attitudes toward those around usclaims and attitudes that in turn reinforce our fear and amp up the cycle," DeSteno explained.

A general lack of knowledge surrounding the disease impacts our perception of risk, as well. People are likely struggling to assess the risk of COVID-19 because even researchers are still learning about the virus. In response, people will sometimes act erratically in response to a "perceived lack of control," according to Dorothy Frizelle, a consultant clinical health psychologist in the United Kingdom.

Metin Basoglu, a professor of psychiatry and founder oftheIstanbul Center for Behavior Research & Therapy,has researched how people cope behaviorally with traumatic events such as earthquakes. A key lesson, he says, is that you need to accept that some risks are out of your control. "You cannot control every single risk that comes your way in life, and lead a meaningful, reasonable, and productive life at the same time," he told Quartz.

To be sure, it's important to take basic risk-mitigation steps, including following public health guidance around handwashing and self-isolating where appropriate. But people who are prone to anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorder might go overboard with what Basoglu calls "extensive, unrealistic avoidance."

Some people, for instance, might wash their hands to excess, which can actually be counterproductive. As bioethicist Kelly Hills told Vox, "If you are washing your hands so much that they are raw or chafed, you are washing your hands too much"and potentially increasing your risk of infection.

It's also important for people who are prone to anxiety to manage their news consumption. It may be tempting to stay glued to the TV or the internet around the clock for the latest developments, but that can make anxiety worse. "Too much media exposure, we know, can heighten one's anxiety," said Alison Holman, associate professor in the school of nursing at theUniversity of California, Irvineand expert in health psychology.

A better approach, according to Hills, is to read coronavirus news once per day from a credible source. "If you don't need to stay on top of this for your job or your academic work, don't," Hills said.

Finally, as anxiety and even panic around COVID-19 continues to spread, it's important to lean on trusted social support networks. I would recommend that people who tend to be more anxious connect in a safe way with people in their lives who they trust; who can help them calm down; and who they can turn to for support," Holman said (Timsit,Quartz, 3/9; Kucharski,The Guardian, 2/8; DeSteno,New York Times, 2/11; Alptraum, Vox, 3/10; New York Times, 3/11; Smith et al., New York Times, 3/11).

See the original post:
Is your coronavirus anxiety spinning out of control? Here's how to handle it. - The Daily Briefing

Last week, as COVID-19 began its spread around the globe, I noted here that the epidemic had prompted a notable change in the big tech platforms. Where they were once loath to intervene in the affairs of their own algorithms, even when the potential harms to public health were clear, the arrival of a novel coronavirus put them in a newly interventionist mindset.

Today I want to highlight another tech giant coming around, belatedly, to the idea of editorial intervention in a crisis. The giant is Google, and while the company had previously begun directing COVID-19 queries on YouTube to the World Health Organization, it has since gone further. Here are Mark Bergen and Gerrit De Vynck in Bloomberg:

Google searches related to the virus now trigger an SOS Alert, with news from mainstream publications including National Public Radio, followed by information from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization displayed prominently. In contrast, a recent search for flu season showed the website verywellhealth.com at the top, while another search for flu produced tweets, including one from U.S. President Donald Trump comparing coronavirus to the common flu. [...]

On YouTube, Googles video service, the company is trying to quickly remove videos claiming to prevent the virus in place of seeking medical treatment. And some apps related to the virus have been banned from the Google Play app store, prompting complaints from developers who say they just want to help. An Iranian government app built to keep track of infections was also removed from the Play Store, ZDNet reported.

The company is also giving up revenue. Pichai said in another recent memo that Google has blocked tens of thousands of ads capitalizing on the virus. Its also pulled ads from YouTube videos that discuss Covid-19, while giving governments and NGOs free ad space on the video service.

As with the changes I highlighted last week Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest have taken similar steps nothing described here is extraordinary. But it is responsible, and represents a departure from the Google of even two years ago. You can attribute it to a years-long public pressure campaign from academics, activists, lawmakers, employees, or journalists. Or you could credit heightened sensitivities given that a number of tech workers are already among those who have been afflicted by the disease. Whatever the case, the important thing is that Google and others are getting their hands dirty.

Even outside the current crisis around the outbreak and I understand that that vast majority of peoples focus is on that, as it should be you see signs of this new interventionist mindset. I was moderately surprised over the weekend when Twitter applied a manipulated media tag to a doctored video and one retweeted by President Trump, no less.

The video was deceptively edited to make it appear that Joe Biden had endorsed Trumps reelection. (It has also been uploaded to Facebook and TikTok, among other places.) Last Thursday, Twitter instituted a new policy of labeling tweets that contained deceptive or synthetic media. But policy, as I like to say, is what you enforce, and given Twitters historical aversion to enforcement, there was reason to wonder how aggressively it would apply the new mandate. To the companys credit, it enforced the policy right away.

Of course, the move had its critics and not just among aggrieved Republicans. Many noted that the label was small and easy to miss. Theres also the question of whether such labels inform users effectively about the nature of the post. Is it clear that manipulated media is deceptive, potentially harmful media? Might it not be better if it took the form of a pre-roll warning, at least for deceptive videos?

These are questions worth asking. But in the meantime its notable that the conversation has shifted entirely from should tech companies intervene? to what interventions are most effective? Its a shift that were all likely to benefit from.

I got mixed feedback on yesterdays column arguing that Jack Dorseys days might still be numbered following the companys deal with activist investor Elliott Management. A few folks wrote in to tell me that the deal had, in fact, saved Dorseys job, and that he was here to stay. One person told me this after speaking with another member of Twitters board.

On the other hand, having reviewed the agreement between Twitter and Elliott, Steven Levy take had all the same thoughts I did. And Matt Levine makes a strong numerical case for Dorseys relative weakness: for a big tech CEO, Dorsey simply doesnt own very much of his own company.

Today in news that could affect public perception of the big tech platforms.

Trending up: Amazon executives approved a $5 million fund to support small businesses around its Seattle headquarters struggling with a dramatic slowdown since the company instructed its employees to work from home if they could.

Trending up: Google established a fund so hourly workers can take paid sick leave if they experience coronavirus symptoms. The policy also applies if people cant come to work because theyre quarantined.

Trending up: Apple is giving hourly employees, including retail workers, unlimited sick leave if they experience coronavirus symptoms. They wont be required to submit a doctors note.

Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden canceled planned rallies today to reduce the risk of virus transmission. (Makena Kelly / The Verge)

Two people who attended the popular RSA security conference in San Francisco last month contracted the disease, and one is in a coma. (Jeran Wittenstein and Kartikay Mehrotra / Bloomberg)

Flattening the curve, explained. (Eliza Barclay and Dylan Scott / Vox)

Are open floor-plan offices making the virus spread worse? (Konrad Putzier / Wall Street Journal)

A Fox Business host denounced COVID-19 concerns as an impeachment scam, in the latest example of Fox News promoting dangerous misinformation. (Matt Stieb / Intelligencer)

Heres a running list of the worst things President Trump has said in an effort to downplay the crisis. (Daily Edge)

On the office front:

Amazon is relaxing its attendance policy for warehouse workers due to the spread of the coronavirus. The company told employees that it will not count any unpaid time off if they need to take it during the month of March. (Annie Palmer / CNBC)

Google now recommends that all of its North American employees work from home. (Rob Price / Business Insider)

Contractors at Google and Facebook are worried they might not get the same access to sick leave and remote work benefits that the companies extend to their full-time employees. (Nitasha Tiku and Elizabeth Dwoskin / The Washington Post)

Also: The coronavirus outbreak is prompting many people to start working from home. And while that makes sense during a pandemic, its not necessarily good for their creativity or health. As a remote work skeptic, I thank Kevin for writing this column! (Kevin Roose / The New York Times)

The Game Developers Conference, which was canceled, will instead stream some planned sessions on Twitch. (Megan Farokhmanesh / The Verge)

On the economy:

Costco is getting a bump from coronavirus panic shopping. The companys February sales were up 12.4 percent from a year ago. (Nathaniel Meyersohn / CNN)

Broadway is slashing ticket prices to boost demand. Great time to see The Book of Mormon! Actually probably not. (David Rooney / The Hollywood Reporter)

Heres how the coronavirus outbreak could impact the future of tech, particularly the sharing economy and the big tech companies. (Sam Lessin / The Information)

Elsewhere:

The American sports world is dragging its feet on COVID-19. While the big tech conferences are all canceled and companies make employees work from home, Major League Baseball continues to hold 15 spring-training games a day in Florida and Arizona, two of the states with confirmed cases of the virus. (Will Leitch / Intelligencer)

Coachella was postponed until October. (Gabe Meline / KQED)

The Senate Judiciary Committee pressed Google on antitrust issues during a Tuesday hearing. Among other things, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) announced a bill to limit the ability of big companies to lock out smaller competitors. Adi Robertson explains at The Verge:

Klobuchar described her bill, known as the Anticompetitive Exclusionary Conduct Prevention Act, as an across-the-board reform. It increases the burden of proof on monopolists to prove theyre not suppressing competition, and it discourages courts from granting immunity from antitrust enforcement. We have a major monopoly problem in this country, which harms consumers and threatens free and fair competition across our economy, she said in a statement. Companies need to be put on notice.

But she promoted it during a Senate hearing on digital platforms, one of several events sparked by the backlash against large tech companies. The hearing covered the tactic of self-preferencing where a company uses dominance in one area to privilege its other services, whether or not theyre the best option for consumers. Depending on the circumstances, these types of practices can have a devastating effect of competition, said Klobuchar.

Federal judge Patricia Campbell-Smith said Amazon is likely to succeed on a key argument in the Pentagon cloud lawsuit. Campbell-Smith sided with Amazons contention that the Pentagon made a mistake in evaluating prices for competing proposals from Amazon and Microsoft, under pressure from President Trump. Aaron Gregg at The Washington Post has the story:

In a blow to Microsoft and the Defense Department, Campbell-Smith ordered the Pentagon to halt work on JEDI. In a lengthy opinion explaining her reasoning, she sided with Amazons contention that the Pentagon made a mistake in evaluating prices for competing proposals from Amazon and Microsoft. (Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

She also said the mistake is likely to harm Amazon materially, an important qualifier for government contract bid protests. She rejected arguments raised earlier by Microsoft and the Defense Department that Amazon should have raised its concerns sooner.

Russia has stepped up its efforts to inflame racial tensions in the United States as part of its attempt to influence Novembers presidential election. The strategy involves trying to incite violence by white supremacists and to stoke anger among African-Americans. (Julian E. Barnes and Adam Goldman / The New York Times)

Last year, the knitting site Ravelry banned all pro-Trump content. The situation caused an uproar among older women on the site, who struggled to contend with issues of censorship and hate speech. (Tanya Basu / MIT Technology Review)

Twitter rewrote its developer policy in an effort to recognize good bots and make it easier for academics to use. Heres Sarah Perez in TechCrunch:

Twitter data is used to study topics like spam, abuse, and other areas related to conversation health, the company noted, and it wants these efforts to continue. The revised policy now allows the use of the Twitter API for academic research purposes. In addition, Twitter is simplifying its rules around the redistribution of Twitter data to aid researchers. Now, researchers will be able to share an unlimited number of Tweet IDs and/or User IDs, if theyre doing so on behalf of an academic institution and for the sole purpose of non-commercial research, such as peer review, says Twitter.

Scientists say that lurking on social media probably wont destroy your brain. Unless youre a teenager, in which case it might. (Katie Notopoulos / BuzzFeed)

Facebook is testing out letting users cross-post their stories to Instagram, instead of just the other way around. The feature could save people time while allowing them to get more views on their stories. On the other hand, who cares. (Josh Constine / TechCrunch)

Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos are among the investors in a secretive robotics startup known as Vicarious. Its robots are now assembling sampler packs for Sephora. (Tom Simonite / Wired)

The secret-sharing app Whisper left years of users most intimate confessions exposed on the internet. The messages were tied to peoples age and location, raising concerns that the information could have been used to dox or blackmail people. (Drew Harwell / The Washington Post)

The smart tech label, applied to everything from toothbrushes to TVs, masks the data collection and surveillance capabilities embedded into the design of the devices. (Jathan Sadowski / OneZero)

A man Gainesville, Florida was using an exercise app to track his bike rides. The app fed his location to Google, which then placed him at the scene of a crime he didnt commit, thanks to a geofence warrant. These warrants, which allow police to sweep up Google location data, have increased dramatically over the past two years. (Jon Schuppe / NBC)

Fast Company names Snap the most innovative company of 2020. Mark Wilson gets an interview with CEO Evan Spiegel out of the deal. Spiegel says: I mean . . . people come up and thank me. Like, random people. Hey, thanks for not selling to Facebook. Thats bizarre, right? Thats super bizarre. (Mark Wilson / Fast Company)

Eugene Wei gives us the Heisenberg Certainty Principle of Social Media:

online, everyone sounds more certain than they actually are.

Tinder Has Become A News Service About Coronavirus, Which Is Not What God Intended

Im sorry, Cameron Wilson, but what?!

Despite Tinder being banned in China, users say theyre having luck setting their location to Wuhan, allowing them to match with and chat to residents to hear their perspective on the global story.

US-based Twitter user @drethelin tweeted Setting my tinder to Wuhan so I can get the real scoop on whats going on on Jan. 28 just before the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 was a public health emergency.

Wuhan has enough on its plate without having to talk to this guy. Let Tinder be Tinder!

Send us tips, comments, questions, and quarantine recipes: casey@theverge.com and zoe@theverge.com.

Originally posted here:
Google has been unusually proactive in fighting COVID-19 misinformation - The Verge

Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign rally in Kansas City, Mo., on March 7, 2020.

Photo: Charlie Riedel/AP

It is virtually required in Democratic Party politics to periodically express revulsion about the bigoted political attackswielded for years against former President Barack Obama: images designed to emphasize his African roots, false claimshe was Muslim, the campaign of de-legitimacy based in the racist allegation that he was born in Kenya.

But thatmandated Partydenunciationoftenobscuresthe undeniable fact that while Republicans seized on and drove them all of those attacks also emanatedfrom within the Party, particularly from the 2008 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, which employed them to try to sink Obamas rival presidential candidacy.In February, 2008, Clinton campaign officials widely circulateda photo of Obama meeting with tribalelders while dressed in Somali garbon a trip to rural Kenya,an act which Obamas campaign chief David Plouffe angrily denounced as the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering weve seen from either party in this election.

In December, 2007, the Clinton campaign weeks before the Iowa caucus was forced to requestone of its volunteer county coordinators leave the campaign when it was revealed that the official, along with numerous other Clinton supporters, were forwarding and posting emails claiming Obama was Muslim and sent by madrassas to infiltrate the U.S. on behalf of radical Islam.

When Donald Trump, in 2011, began pushing the birtherism attacks against Obama into the mainstream, Politicos Ben Smith and Byron Tau wrote an article entitled Birtherism: Where it all began, and explained: The answer lies in Democratic, not Republican politics, and in the bitter, exhausting spring of 2008. While the blatantly false theory that Obama was not U.S.-born first originated on fringe right-wing sites and not from Democrats, Politicodocumented that it was during the 2008 Democratic primary, not the General Election,when the repellent theory first gained traction as a result of Clinton supporters spreading it:

Then, as Obama marched toward the presidency, a new suggestion emerged: That he was not eligible to serve. (See: Birther debate alive across U.S.)

That theory first emerged in the spring of 2008, as Clinton supporters circulated an anonymous email questioning Obamas citizenship.

Barack Obamas mother was living in Kenya with his Arab-African father late in her pregnancy. She was not allowed to travel by plane then, so Barack Obama was born there and his mother then took him to Hawaii to register his birth, asserted one chain email that surfaced on the urban legend site Snopes.com in April 2008.

All of that wasconsistent with a very deliberate and carefully crafted strategy from the Clinton campaign of depicting Obama as an exotic, foreign, non-American Other.In early 2007,the Clinton familys long-time chief political strategist Mark Penn wrote a now-notorious memoproclaiming Obama unelectable except perhaps against Attila the Hun, and decreed:I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values, and directing that Obama be targeted for hislack of American roots.

In other words, the very attacks that Democrats with virtual unanimity today vilify as disgusting, racist smears were ones that emanated from their own party either from the Clinton campaign itself (maliciously spreading the photo of Obama in Kenya in traditional Somalian clothing and suggesting he is Muslim) or from various Clinton supporters (falsely claiming he was not eligible to run for office).

And now they are doing the exact same thing when it comes to plainly valid questions concerning Joe Bidens cognitive fitness: expressing revulsion and scorn at the mere mention of these questions and declaring the topic off-limits to all decent peopleeven though establishment Democratswere the ones who firstspread insinuations and even explicit accusations about Bidens cognitive decline when they thought doing so could help them defeathim and/or because it genuinely concerned them regarding his ability to defeat Trump.

Prior to Joe Bidens massive victory in the South Carolina primary and his even-more impressive Super Tuesday showing, many viewed his candidacy as all but dead. A fourth-place finish in Iowa was followed up by a fifth-place finish in New Hampshire, causing thecorporate donors on which he centrally reliesto flee and his political obituaries to be widely written.

But since then, he hasconsolidated his status as Democratic front-runner and, as is customary, he is receiving far greater attention than previously, particularly on the question most on the minds of Democratic voters: his electability against Trump. And one of the towering questions in that regard is his cognitive fitness: it is visible to the naked eye that the 77-year-old six-term Senator and two-term Vice President is in serious cognitive decline.

That is agrave matter not just because the establishment wing of the Democratic Party wants to put him in charge of the worlds most dangerous nuclear arsenal, a large chunk of the planets health, and the welfare of hundreds of millions of people, but also because it directly pertains to whether he can sustain the rigors and spotlight of a General Election against the incumbent President. And multiple incidents over the pastcouple weeks from Bidens forgetting the words of the most iconic and memorized passage of the Declaration of Independence to confusing his wife for his sister to spouting sentences that make no sense have only intensified those worries.

But, as the Democratic establishment has united with creepy speed and obedience behind Biden in order to stop the Sanders candidacy, those who now raise these concernsinstantly come under a withering assault of insults and attacks from Democratic Party operatives along with their crucial media allies: thinly disguised pro-Biden reporters who continue to insist on wearing the unconvincing and fraudulent costume of neutrality. They are invoking the classic Orwellian formulation from the novel 1984: The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

CNNs Democratic Party consultant Karen Finney condemned the discussionof Bidens cognitive capabilities as truly a disgusting low blow, demanding thatformer Democratic presidential candidates Julian Castro and Cory Booker both of whom themselves had commented upon Bidens cognitive failures (on camera!) announce (falsely) that their prior comments about Biden had been distorted.Castros Communications Director, Sawyer Hackett, dutifullyaccused those whowere raising these concerns of push[ing]Trump messaging about Biden; he also denied that Castro (or Booker) had ever themselves questioned Bidens cognitive competence, warning those who are raising the issue: dont try to throw Julin and Cory in front of you when you do.

Meanwhile, Politico and CNN reporter Ryan Lizza, more devoted to defending Biden than even DNC functionaries, spent all weekend conspiratorially insinuatingthat journalists who were raising concerns over Bidens cognitive fitness were part of a joint coordinated attackfrom the Sanders and Trump campaigns. Lizza and others like him promoted various outraged articles from Democratic Party-loyal sites expressing all kinds of indignation after four years of open season of musing casually about Trumps dementia that anyone would even dare discuss Bidens cognitive fitness to occupy the most powerful political position in the world. They all insisted that thiswas some sort of very recent invention on the part of the Sanders and Trump world to stop the Biden juggernaut: a last-minute act of desperation from the Far Right and the Far Left as Biden ascends to his rightful place in the Oval Office.

The problem with all of this? Aside from the fact that Bidens cognitive decline is visible to the naked eye and it is incredibly reckless andrepressive to demand that it be supressed, these concerns were first raised not by Trump operatives nor by Sanders supporters, nor were they first raised within the last several weeks. Quite the opposite is true: they were raised repeatedly over the last yearprincipally by Democratic Party officials and their most loyal allies in the media.

One of the earliest mainstream figures to raise serious questions about Bidens cognitive decline was MSNBCs Andrea Mitchell immediately beforethe June, 2019 presidential debate. The long-time reporter, not exactly known as a Trump sympathizer to put that mildly, went on air amidst a series of rambling, incoherent Biden appearances and said: the question is, does he still have his stuff? How sharp is he?, prompting Chris Matthews to immediately understandher point and reply: You know youre answering the questionwiththe question.

Oneof the most explicit and direct attacks on Bidens cognitive fitness to run for President and to serve came from Democratic Senator Cory Booker (now a Biden endorser). After a CNN presidential debate in September in which Biden had bizarrely rambled about how the key to solving the problems in African-American communities was having parents play the record player for their children, and during which Castro had pointedly accused Biden of having forgotten what he had said just moments earlier Booker unflinchingly suggested Biden lacked the ability to endure the rigours of the campaign (the full Booker interview is here):

One of the exchanges Booker had referenced where Castro accused Biden of forgetting what he said just moments earlier elicited a very intense reaction from the audience because, contrary to the attempts of Castros consultant to re-write history now that they need jobs and favors from Biden, who they expect to be in control of the party, both Booker and the audience knewexactlywhat Castro was suggesting about Biden. It was the same thing that numerous Democrats and MSNBC analysts were saying: that Biden is suffering from seriouscognitive decline that would make it very difficult to stand up to Trump let alone to govern as President:

Even more explicit than Castro and Booker was Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan. Prior to the New Hampshire primary, the 9-term Congressman from Ohio and then-presidential-candidate not only made clear that he believes Biden is suffering from cognitive decline but also admitted that members of the Democratic Party establishment routinely discuss this in secret:

Before Biden became the consensus establishment choice three weeks ago and Democratic operatives thus tried to impose a ban on speaking ill of him while deceitfully pretending they and their clients never did so for fear that it could cost them future consulting or political gigs within the Biden-controlled Party it was commonly and routinely acknowledged, even on DNC propaganda outlets such as MSNBC, that Bidens cognitive decline was an open secret among Democratic Party officials who believed it posed a serious threat to his ability to campaign, let alone beat Trump, let alone govern as President.

Just watch for yourself and remember this as they now try to convince you that this is just some recently manufactured smear by Sanders and Trump supporters;theyare the ones who have been raising this, with good reason, for more than a year:

Heres one of the most popular pundits among Democrats, Rolling Stones Jamil Smith, raising the issue delicately but clearly after Biden, for at least the second time, falsely claimed that he was Vice President during the Parkland school shootings:

A now-deleted tweet from Jamil Smith.

Screenshot: The Intercept

In September more than six months ago the playwright Dylan Brody, a devoted hater of Donald Trump and a fan of both Biden and the Democratic Party, said what any honest person was seeing:

Numerous liberals, including my colleague Mehdi Hasan and others, were warning in the fall of last year that Bidens cognitive decline was clear and would be used against him as a potent weapon:

After the early Fall, 2019, debates, discussions of Bidens visibly faltering brain were commonplace even on MSNBC:

The list of prominent political and media figures raising these concerns throughout 2019 is long and diverse.That this is some recently manufactured script coordinated by the Sanders and Trump campaigns to smear Biden is so laughably and provably false that pro-Biden reporters should be ashamed to show their faces as they claim it. But centrists as theyve proven since Trumps presidency began casually arrogate unto themselves the right to disseminate the most unhinged conspiracies without the need for any evidence and without the slightest regard for whether they are true.

Whatever else is true, there are large numbers of people who have long been watching Joe Biden who have been admitting that they see his cognitive decline and that it deeply worries them about his ability to beat Trump. That includes, indeed has been led by, Democratic politicians, operatives and pundit-journalists now supporting him whilefeigning outrage over this discussion (that theystarted)andpretending that its all some morally reprehensible fabrication recently churned out by his enemies.

Some are motivated by desperation to push Biden to the Oval Office and will sacrifice the truth, their integrity and their dignity to do it; others are power-flatterers who now see Biden as the new King of their royal court on which their wealth and access depends and so are re-writing their own history to delete what they said about him. Regardless of motive, its clear where these valid concerns about Bidens cognitive decline originated: from within Bidens own partisan establishment circles. The video and textual evidence is undeniable. When you hear them spin this lie,just confrontthem with this evidence. Most importantly, do everything possible to make sure voters see it before they pass the point of no return. Voting in democracy is valuable only when it is informed, not the by-product of elite deceit and propaganda.

Excerpt from:
Democrats and Their Media Allies Impugned Biden's Cognitive Fitness. Now They Feign Outrage. - The Intercept

And just like that, it was done. Britain put itself through years of political crisis, economic stagnation and social division, all to end the free movement of people within the European Union. Like a nation selling the family silver to fund a search for a lost tenner, we could finally brandish our successfully retrieved banknote while the neighbours looked on in bemusement.

But already most people will have forgotten the announcement. No mention of it remains in the dailies. New threats and worries emerge. The news cycle moves on. Anyone could be forgiven for thinking it never even mattered.

Priti Patels points-based immigration system is, as it stands, liable to cause havoc in sectors such as social care and hospitality. It also ends the free movement of the British ourselves: by cancelling the automatic right of EU citizens to live and work here, it means that our right to do likewise in the EU also ends. It is nevertheless likely to enjoy strong public support, particularly from leave voters. Vote Leave promised to take back control, and in this sense and, chances are, this sense alone the government is delivering. The public wanted direct controls on EU immigration, and now theyre getting them. Consequences are for losers.

The debate now veers between those who feel reducing numbers is key, and those who argue that 'control' is enough

Will this finally extinguish immigration as a public sore point? Is it even a sore point any more, given recent shifts in public opinion? And if not, why are we doing this at such cost to ourselves?

The trend line of British attitudes to immigration is not a simple one. Concerns over immigration were almost nonexistent in the 1990s but shot up in the early 2000s around hysterical coverage of the Sangatte refugee camp in France, and then rose further after the rise in migration that followed the expansion of the EU in 2004.

While the issue subsided as a voter priority in the years following the financial crisis, it never truly went away, and shot up again amid frenzied coverage of Romanian and Bulgarian immigration in 2014 and then the Syrian refugee crisis in 2014 and 2015.

The 2016 leave campaign was built on racist scaremongering over immigration Syrian refugees, Turkish membership of the EU. Nigel Farage and Dominic Cummings both shamelessly exploited the Cologne sexual assaults to claim Britains EU membership meant it could happen here.

Plainly, this is not just about what political types call lived experience. While New Labour housed asylum-seekers in deprived areas, where they became a lightning rod for local hostility, the overall public opposition to immigration in the early 2000s cannot be divorced from the blanket media coverage of the Sangatte camp at the time.

Similarly, 2013 saw widespread coverage of the imminent lifting of restrictions on immigration from Bulgaria and Romania, with a predicted surge in migration that never came to pass. The number of people concerned about Syrian refugees was infinitely larger than the number of people who were ever likely to meet one. This not to say that direct experience of immigration justifies negative attitudes it is simply to show that media coverage has a significant influence on public opinion.

Only since the referendum has public opposition to immigration softened although even then, large numbers still support cuts to immigration. In 2011, nearly two-thirds of Britons thought immigration had been bad for the country according to one polling firm by 2019 that had fallen to barely a quarter.

There are various reasons for this shift. Brexit may have satisfied leave voters that immigration will fall or at least be under control though that doesnt explain why more people think immigration has been good, and fewer think its been bad.

Instead there is evidence that media coverage of the forecast impact of post-Brexit immigration controls, including health and care staff shortages, and fruit going rotten on farms has increased public understanding and acceptance of the role of immigration. A year ago, Ipsos Mori found most of those who had become more positive about immigration had done so because discussions about Brexit presumably in the media rather than at the watercooler had highlighted how much immigrants contribute to the UK.

Given that many remain voters actually wanted controls on immigration in 2016 55% of them in a NatCen poll that November this shows both the impact of media coverage and the failings of the remain campaign itself in the runup to the referendum. How many column inches, we may ask, were devoted to the prospect of Turkish membership four years ago? And did pro-EU politicians really make the case for free movement, not just during the campaign itself but in the years before it?

But it also reflects that economic arguments are central to the softening of attitudes to immigration. Like most countries white-majority or otherwise Britain is not automatically welcoming of outsiders. It is too soon to extrapolate from this that there is a fundamental acceptance of immigration as a good in and of itself. Antipathy towards immigrants claiming benefits or using the NHS remains high. Future waves of migration may be met with the same wall of hostility as previous ones.

The government may find it politically easy to loosen its points-based criteria to address staff shortages in the care sector, for example Boris Johnson has the trust of leave voters, and adult care is a frontline service facing widely documented challenges.

Should the new criteria fail to bring down immigration levels, will voters be riled, resigned or find it wholly irrelevant? The debate that followed the announcement of the new rules veered between those who feel reducing actual numbers is key, and those who argue that the concept of control is enough to assuage public concerns.

But what really counts will be media coverage. Say, for example, that after three years of the points-based system, immigration levels are still rising. Imagine two different scenarios. In the first, rising immigration is being blared out on the front pages of national newspapers, breathlessly debated on the BBC and going viral via the internets outrage-industrial complex. In the second, it isnt instead its just treated as a normal and fairly unexciting statistic. Is public opinion the same in both scenarios? Of course not.

But all this may seem quaint in years to come. Should the governments handling of Brexit end up gutting the economy, the surge across the border may be from people heading out, not coming in.

Chaminda Jayanetti is a journalist who covers politics and public services

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Will the new immigration system detoxify the issue? It depends on the media - The Guardian

In China, people from the city of Wuhan are jokingly referred to as nine-headed birds because of their habit of inveterate squabbling. In recent weeks, though, an eerie silence has descended on their world. Empty streets, empty malls. Everyone kept indoors. The government says 80,000 are infected by coronavirus, and more than 3,000 have died in China.

This pandemic has now spread to more than 100 countries and territories. Is the city just one big prison-hospital? News and rumour arrive round the clock online, but that dismal barrage in a sense only makes things worse. A few people cant take the pressure, climb to a top floor and jump into black silence below.

In China, the problem is not even lack of knowledge so much as lack of a system in which knowledge is possible

Viewed from the outside, the city might seem like a giant aquarium. Visible fish swim silently while not a drop of water leaks out. Police have welded doors shut in order to monitor who enters and leaves buildings. Roads out of the city are cut with deep trenches or blocked by walls. Even little paths that lead towards farmland have been destroyed. Swim down a river? There are nets to catch you.

The famous bustle of Wuhan people takes some macabre forms. Crematoriums advertise online. Face-masks command high prices, and the market in body bags grows. In an absurdist gesture, people in some neighbourhoods open their windows to join their neighbours in choral renditions of pro-government songs.

In a city of 13 million, how many poignant stories must there be? We will never hear most of them, but here is one: a young man comes home to visit his ageing parents to see in the new year. The parents have long been wishing that he would marry, but he has not been able to attract a girlfriend. Not wanting to disappoint, he hires a young lady to come home with him as his fiancee, sleeping in a separate bedroom. The two have agreed that after leaving Wuhan they will revert to being casual acquaintances. But the virus strikes and they are trapped in the parents apartment. The young woman endures slicing tofu and making small talk with her future mother-in-law. Nothing can be done about that.

In normal times, the nine-headed birds of Wuhan are full of opinions on all sorts of political and cultural topics, but the searing question of the virus has thrust everything else into the background. Life and death are at stake, and it is terrifying that something that so monopolises attention is also unknowable. Where did the virus come from? How far has it spread? How long will the epidemic last? Such questions, shrouded in opacity and lacking any solid ground on which even to invite answers, can make it seem that civilisation itself is in question.

The communist system, with its tight control of information and its accountability of officials only to their bureaucratic superiors, not to the people below, has been undermining social trust for decades. Citizens do not expect a volte-face in trust just because a deadly virus appears. But without trust, peoples immune system against lies breaks down.In the public sphere, all belief becomes ungrounded belief.

Statements float like clouds, beyond truth or falsity. Questions about a virus what happened and why? should be empirical questions that have determinable answers. But not in China, where the problem is not even lack of knowledge so much as lack of a system in which knowledge is possible. Chinas officialdom does have a scale on which it measures the value of particular statements, but the criterion is not truth or falsity it is how well the statement does something that authorities want to see done.

It will not be easy to stop the rot of trust in China, because its spread is already deep. Moreover there is the very daunting problem that the Communist party does not want transparency and trust. The partys power rests crucially on two cornerstones: intimidation and control of information. This is because a populace both frightened and blind is pliable.

I have been living in exile for several years. I feel a constant pull to connect with life in Wuhan I mean with real life, not the cloud of opaque language. What are people actually feeling? Can that hired bride go home now, I wonder? Can the young mans parents come to terms with the truth? Will any of them get good information on the virus so that they can know where they stand?

Perhaps I have inherited something from my father, the poet Ai Qing. One of his most famous poems, I Love this Land, was written in 1938 as the city of Wuhan fell before the Japanese military:

If I were a bird I would sing myself hoarse About this land torn by storm This raging river that surges around our anger This furious wind that roars without end And about the ever-gentle dawn that rises through the trees Then die Even my feathers to rot in the earth Why are there always tears in my eyes?I love this land too deeply

China is ill, yes but from much more than a coronavirus. The world panics but only about the virus, not about the deeper illness. China interlocks with the world economically and, in recent years, in some political ways too. If its systemic illness continues to worsen, and to spread by contagion, the world may have to face the existential questions that the illness raises: can civilisation survive without trust? Can government that lacks legitimacy survive indefinitely?

Ai Weiwei is a contemporary artist, activist and advocate of political reform in China

Translation by Perry Link

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China is ill, but it goes much deeper than the coronavirus - The Guardian