It is preferable to have a scary picture tied to the title to increase the chance of eyeballs scanning your piece and more importantly your advertisements. After all, websites only pay for themselves if eyes see adverts.

Now that you’ve snared a reader with a scare tactic, keep the fear and anxiety going. Another picture with an ominous caption should work well. Something involving WW1 era gas masks meant to protect soldiers during trench warfare would be an excellent choice. Always promote war imagery if possible; an excellent way to heighten anxiety. Depending on the perceived reputation of your organization, you may need a well-placed and subtle caveat in your picture’s subtitle. If your organization engages in more outlandish commentary, forgo the hedge.

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Between the scare title, one or two gas mask pictures, and a scary subtitle for your pictures, you’ve got your eyeballs and your ad rev.

The body of the piece doesn’t matter so much. If your editor likes numbers and “facts”, feel free to throw some on in. Just make sure you contradict them: in the exact same piece, in a piece you wrote recently or will write soon, or in something that has been written or said by someone else. When a number of significance is hit (this is largely arbitrary and simply focuses on round numbers of either infected or dead), write a piece about it. That story will write itself while you wait on your microwave dinner to heat and will be an easy win because people will already know about the milestone and seek this story out themselves.

ABOVE ALL, do not take the importance of maintaining off the charts anxiety lightly! As the weather warms in the northern hemisphere where the majority of cases are, people tend to become more active, enjoy the weather, and pay attention to the keepers of the information less and their family and friends more. Don’t worry about things like hobbies, sporting events, kid’s baseball games, concerts and the like. The others will handle that. Our job is crucial to them being successful in theirs. We are men and women of action and anxiety. Truth is less useful.

——End of Satire——

COVID-19 is obviously new and hard data will be slow in coming. I am beyond thankful for our healthcare professionals who are on the front lines taking care of sick people in the face of increased risk to themselves. This is the work of a hero. As for the clinicians searching for treatment pathways and the eventual vaccine?  Heroes all.

It seems as though both the Gov (Fed, State, and Local) and the media (both social and mainstream) have agendas that may not line up so nicely with Healthcare’s mission and because of that may be making care more difficult for our great doctors, nurses, lab workers, CNA’s, infection prevention, etc… Being first to report something seems to always trump accuracy of the information which in my view has resulted in confusing and contradictory direction, rampant misinformation which logically leads to misunderstanding. How in the world could it not?

Why would they do that? One reason may start with the title above…