Today I thought it wise to mostly bypass the relentless onslaught of negative news about Covid-19. Instead, let’s talk about Advance Care Directives, Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) orders and organ donation. I can’t imagine anyone under 50 who has given these topics a moment’s thought, but read on. Twenty years from now you’ll say to your partner – ‘Remember that piece Bob wrote about DNRs? Maybe the time has come?’ The topic arose as the…
Amid reports of doubters who (still) believe Covid is fake news, this week we examine the history of public protest and vaccine hesitancy in times of contagion. Those 3,000 or so people who mingled on Sydney’s streets a while back, protesting against the Covid lockdown, protesting about vaccines – it’s nothing new. In the early 19th century, Joe Public was getting riled up by the spread of cholera and the seemingly poor response by doctors and…
Today we’ll be talking about ‘doom scrolling’ and our addiction to negative news, even though we know how bad it is for the psyche. Despite complaining about the doom and gloom fed to us through the media, we can’t quite get enough of it. Psychological studies have shown that people’s brains have a bias towards negative or sensational news. So even today, in the time of CovidNSW – The Rising, we leap upon the latest…
