These days, the story is told simultaneously. Nurses care for Covid patients, and they're written up as heroes before their shift ends.
Which is fair enough, given that they get clapped rather than paid a New Normal/New Economy wage.
But then some large brain-dead organisation puts the story ahead of the facts. We've got billions of tests happening every hour, the government tells us as we queue at the test centre.
Or click away helplessly, trying to book a test.
The Covid story is that it goes away. We defend ourselves mightily against the threat of a second wave, using all the "world-beating" blah-blah that the prime minister was waving his arms about, and - wait for it - the war will be over by Christmas.
The virus, I mean. Not the war. It's a staple of any war story that everybody thinks it'll be over by Christmas and it never is. But this is different. This is the virus and, er, it'll be over by Christmas.
Which is lucky, if you think about it. Nothing's actually happened to the virus. Nobody's shot it with a tranquilliser dart, or told it "Shoo!" It's the same old virus that was killing us back in March. Mutated a bit, maybe, easier to catch - but recognisably the same.
We're lucky that we can just tell the story of how it will go away by Christmas - and it will go away.
I mean - imagine if we had to do something to make it go away. Imagine that all the targets and the media briefings and the prime-ministerial blathering weren't enough.
What then?
Which is fair enough, given that they get clapped rather than paid a New Normal/New Economy wage.
But then some large brain-dead organisation puts the story ahead of the facts. We've got billions of tests happening every hour, the government tells us as we queue at the test centre.
Or click away helplessly, trying to book a test.
The Covid story is that it goes away. We defend ourselves mightily against the threat of a second wave, using all the "world-beating" blah-blah that the prime minister was waving his arms about, and - wait for it - the war will be over by Christmas.
The virus, I mean. Not the war. It's a staple of any war story that everybody thinks it'll be over by Christmas and it never is. But this is different. This is the virus and, er, it'll be over by Christmas.
Which is lucky, if you think about it. Nothing's actually happened to the virus. Nobody's shot it with a tranquilliser dart, or told it "Shoo!" It's the same old virus that was killing us back in March. Mutated a bit, maybe, easier to catch - but recognisably the same.
We're lucky that we can just tell the story of how it will go away by Christmas - and it will go away.
I mean - imagine if we had to do something to make it go away. Imagine that all the targets and the media briefings and the prime-ministerial blathering weren't enough.
What then?