Don Your Way column: Why coronavirus has become the new Brexit

Although, over the past few weeks, you’d be hard pushed to remember that Brexit ever happened.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave (which, in fairness, is probably the best and safest place to be right now) coronavirus is the new dominant daily force in our lives and on the news.

Wherever you go and whatever you do, you can’t escape Covid-19 (although you do stand a better chance if you wash your hands 40 times a day while singing Happy Birthday).

Not that I’m making light of such a serious situation. It is of course vital that we all do our bit to do what we can to prevent the spread of the virus.

But I’m sure you’ll agree, there’s nothing us Brits love more than a good ‘thing’ to get upset about.

For the past three years its been wall to wall Brexit with stories split between believers and non-believers, tales of scaremongering and panic-buying and incidents of racism.

But coronavirus appears to have put Brexit firmly on the back burner, replacing it on the news schedules with, erm, stories split between believers and non-believers, tales of scaremongering and panic-buying and incidents of racism.

I jest, of course, before the angry brigade comes out in force once again. Be kind, remember? Although that particular little phase seems to have lasted about five minutes before normal service was resumed.

As soon as coronavirus blows out (as it inevitably will), we’ll all find something else to get our knickers in a twist over.

And then whenever what that is has disappeared (storms, flooding, weather, climate change etc) there will be something else to come along to take its place.

News outlets only operate by giving the public what they want, despite what readers may say.

And at the moment, that’s non stop coronavirus coverage (the figures bear it out) so believe me when I say that it’s what you all appear to want to read about.

See you on the other side.