Denise Welch has hit out at the swirl of news stories surrounding the monkeypox virus, as she dubbed the excessive reports as “scaremongering” on Loose Women.
During Tuesday’s (May 24) instalment of the popular ITV daytime show, the 64-year-old joined Judi Love, Kelle Bryan and Ruth Langsford on the show as she discussed the recent coverage of the ongoing outbreak of monkeypox.
The Hollyoaks star shared her thoughts on the latest reports which state many patients who have contracted the virus are required to isolate for three weeks.
The monkeypox is a rare virus which causes a rash all over the body in addition to a fever, headaches, muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes, and exhaustion.
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Although the virus was discovered decades ago, the sudden spread of cases has caused alarm nationwide due to its wide geographic spread in recent months.
But the mum-of-two has informed viewers that she isn’t going to worry about it as she accused media outlets of “generating fear” online.
She explained: “I don’t think that it will surprise many people to know what my views are of the already scaremongering. And believe you me, I do know the difference between reporting news and scaremongering.
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“But there are certain words that are already being used which are used to generate fear. We used to talk about staying at home if you’re poorly, now we talk about isolating, quarantining.
“We’ve just come out of a horrendous three years where people are trying to find some kind of mental balance after everything that was thrown at us with Covid – especially people like you Kelle, who have an immune disease and you have to be careful more than most people.”
She went on to explain how she recently spoke with two medical professionals who agreed with her point of view as she continued to accuse the press of “scaremongering” surrounding the illness.
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Denise went on: “At the moment – and again, people will go, ‘Oh, listen to Professor Welch!’ I’ve never professed to be like that. Mine has always been about how this affects mental health and I can see it starting again.
“So yesterday, I spoke to two very highly qualified people in infectious diseases who have said that they are very angry with already the way that they can see this happening in the press.
“In this moment there are very few cases – and it’s something they should keep an eye on – there was also an outbreak in 2017 and 2018 and of course because we weren’t on such high alert, we weren’t so aware of it.
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“Now we seem to be aware of absolutely everything. Personally, I’m not going to worry about it at the moment.”
However, Kelle – who suffers from an autoimmune disease Lupus – said: “It doesn’t frighten me but I’d rather be informed … because then I can be a little bit more conscious about it.
“For me I know that if I were to contract it, it would be harder to get rid of it.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
