designboom is an italian publication, our headquarters are in milan, with teams working from beijing, tokyo and new york and you might wonder why there is such a silence from our part? the novel coronavirus has infected more than 113000 people and it’s a normal behaviour getting nervous. more than 3,800 people have died worldwide. when the threat is so uncertain (and potentially far-reaching) the problem of communication right now is too much communication from everybody (medically not authoritative) … and too much media exposure, we know, can heighten one’s anxiety.

 

the non-stop media cycle surrounding the outbreak, which all these articles are part of, doesn’t help with that. we decided to refrain from publishing these trending articles to not aliment the hysteria even more. we are worried about the human reaction to the virus in the weeks to come. 

 

we’ve only published three informative fact (architecture and design related) articles: the postponing of salone del mobile, geneva motor show and la biennale di venezia. anxiety moves faster than a virus and we did not start a breaking news interview series with VIP designers on that topic. unfortunately that is the media spin, even if it is unintentional some of the time.

 

as the coronavirus situation develops, we believe priority is to practice the important, very basic things that people can do to take back control. at least to the extent that we can, control our degree of vulnerability to this illness. those include self-isolating or ‘social distancing’, while our editors around the world embrace this approach, we will remain committed to bringing you the latest design news.

 

cover image courtesy of sara shakeel