Headline states: “Retired primary school teacher dies after testing positive for coronavirus at Royal Stoke.”

Article clarifies: “North Staffordshire senior coroner Andrew Barkley concluded that Miss Johnson’s death was due to the complications of a fall. He said: “After having a nightmare, she jumped out of bed and sustained a fall that resulted in a fractured pelvis.

“When she was admitted to hospital, she was diagnosed with community acquired pneumonia and initially showed a negative Covid test, but that changed to positive on November 12.

“She was treated with antibiotics and discharged on November 19 with a care package. She became acutely unwell and informed her carers and she suddenly became unresponsive, despite CPR.”

“A cause of death was provided as community acquired pneumonia and Covid-19, with a fractured pubic rami, atrial fibrillation, left ventricular dysfunction and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) as contributory factors.”

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And there you have it; that’s how they do it. A very elderly woman with multiple health problems, who the coroner ruled died of a fall – as elderly women in fragile health are wont to do – is nevertheless used as part of the pantomime plague to petrify you, and it will work, because few people read past the headlines and even fewer are able to critically think about what they have read.

Note also the inclusion of her former career, primary school teacher. Is this relevant? Is it more of a tragedy when a retired primary school teacher dies, than, say, a retired bus driver or retired IT technician? Obviously, it isn’t, but this is just more cynical media manipulation, knowing the public image of a primary school teacher is of someone lovely, cuddly, caring – subtext being, if this evil, ruthless disease can take such a shining beacon of compassion and care, it could take you, too! No reason to include a job she hasn’t done for 25 years otherwise.

Now, most people suppress a smirk when I say this, but I did Media Studies A-level (it was hard, ok!), and it does teach you – or at least, it did back in 1874 when I did it – how to critically read the media, and the cacophonous array of propaganda and subliminal programming techniques the media uses to get you to absorb and accept messages, without you realising you’ve done so.

Calling the media “the news” is probably the biggest propaganda weapon of all. It’s not news, it’s a deftly conceived collection of psychological manipulation and behaviour modification techniques, designed to elicit the thoughts and behaviours from you the overlords deem desirable.

Make no mistake, if this 85-year-old woman had died shortly after receiving the coronavirus vaccine (as many will), her death would not even have made page 37 of this newspaper, never mind being the headline story for the entire local area. Because as I say, the media does not report “news”, it doesn’t objectively report events of local and national interest – rather, it is a highly strategic weapon of psychological warfare – and the enemy it is looking to defeat with all these expert, military-grade tactics and techniques – is you.