UK media responses to HIV through the lens of COVID-19: a study of multidirectional memory

This article proposes correlations and parallels in UK newsprint media coverage of the COVID-19 and HIV/AIDS pandemics through engagement with Michael Rothberg’s model of multidirectional memory. It achieves this via qualitative and quantitative analysis of newsprint media during selected timelines of the respective outbreaks. Although the COVID-19 outbreak, which originated in Wuhan, China in 2019 and spread globally, has prompted reference to a number of previous traumatic events, including 9/11 and the Holocaust, one might contend that it correlates most closely with HIV/AIDS given the latter’s ongoing nature and worldwide reach. COVID-19, having infected 629 million people since December 2019 with 6.5 million deaths by November 2022, still presents a global threat through which we might read the trauma of HIV, a disease that has thus far seen 32.7 million deaths and has infected 75.7 million people worldwide. This relationship exists despite the fact that the two viruses and their effects differ markedly: HIV is a retrovirus, has a long incubation time, is transmitted via bodily fluids, has a low risk of infectivity via everyday contact and, to date, no fully effective vaccine has been developed. Contrastingly, COVID-19 is a coronavirus, has a short incubation time, is transmitted via contact and airborne respiratory aerosols, has a high risk of infectivity via everyday contact, and investment in vaccine development has been significant, with several vaccines ...
Source: Medical Humanities - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: COVID-19 Original research Source Type: research