Del Val urges flu vaccination as outlet recycles 2020 article

Del Val calls for flu shots and a newspaper recycles a 2020 piece

Virologist and immunologist Margarita del Val issued an urgent message from Vegadeo: the flu vaccination campaign cannot wait. With temperatures falling, the scientist from the Severo Ochoa Centre of Molecular Biology urged the public, especially vulnerable people, to get immunised against the bicho, whose incidence is rising in Asturias. "Don't let it slip, the sooner the better," Del Val insisted during the closing day of the Communication and School Forum run by the Elisa y Luis Villamil institute.

So far, a routine health recommendation from an expert in her public role. The problem is how that voice reached the reader: wrapped in an article which, when peine, referred to "future vaccines coming out in 2021". A recycled text. Old news dressed up as a fresh alert. And that's where things went wrong.

The recycled article that set off the alarm

The discovery spread fast: according to several participants, the outlet had reused an old article and presented it as current material. The byline, one Pepe Moreno, did little to dispel doubts. The majority reaction was not against the virologist but against the editorial practice: repeating news to generate panic using outdated information. Some went as far as calling it grounds to report the outlet.

The anecdote has a certain dark humour to it. A provincial newspaper resurrects a text from years ago, an expert is portrayed as if she were back with the same speech, and people conclude a new lockdown is coming. The antiestéticar machine runs on its own, without anyone having to switch it on deliberately.

From antiestéticar to lockdown: flu as a dress rehearsal

The conversation soon turned to what really worries people: whether this is the prologue to something else. Some participants argue there will be no lockdown like 2020's, because back then public money rained down and governments acted in unison; now the funding has been cut off and the focus has shifted to Ukraine. The scenario taking shape is a different one: rising prices, consumption restrictions and little else.

Against that weighs the argument that antiestéticar is manufactured the same way, with or without a budget. The proof, they say, is the everyday scene: people wearing masks in the supermarket, pharmacies prepared, and a sense of déjà vu that needs no official confirmation. Some openly speak of "sheeple" and how easily the muzzle ritual is reinstated.

Swine flu, the CSIC and the underlying distrust

The scepticism doesn't stop at Del Val. Swine flu comes up as a precedent for what many consider a scam, PCR tests are questioned, and fingers point at the Spanish CSIC vaccine (the state research council): 21 million invested and some 600 doses, a balance sheet read with a knowing smirk. Distrust of health institutions is no longer a fringe phenomenon; it is the starting point.

Some also focus on material issues. Seasonal farm workers and their appalling conditions are mentioned, and that contrast is used to attack the meritocracy narrative: some work themselves to death while others live without knowing how to add up. In that framework, flu is the excuse; the anger is about class.

Who is Margarita del Val and why she polarises

Del Val became a reference figure during the pandemic and, with it, a target for everything blamed on health management. Her recommendation to get the flu shot is technically unremarkable. Her name, however, carries the weight of a period many do not want to relive.

The result is a conversation that says little about flu and much about trust. About media that recycle, experts who become symbols, and a population that no longer distinguishes between a medical recommendation and a veiled threat. The old article was the spark. The tinder had long been dry.

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With this material, the groundhog winter promises to be eventful. And the question left hanging is not whether there will be another lockdown, but how many recycled headlines it will take for people to stop believing the next one.