Covid virtue-signalling has infected our TV dramas

Not for the first time in its history, Eastenders managed to make a bit of a stir last week.

In a break from the more harrowing stuff, viewers were treated to the sight of the ever-sprightly Patrick Trueman waltzing into the Minute Mart to jubilantly announce he’d received his second Covid vaccine. ‘Good for you! I’m due my first one later today,’ replied the shop-keeper, before dismissing the objections of a vaccine hesitant customer (called Karen, of all things).

As you can imagine, the scene went down like a cup of cold sick with conspiratorially-minded types online. But you don’t have to believe odd things about Bill Gates to ask the more obvious question: which is why soap operas are tackling the pandemic in the first place.

I get it. Soap operas are supposed to be ‘issue-led’ dramas. But has the BBC learnt nothing from The Archers and its failed lockdown monologues? Furthermore, did the bright sparks of Broadcasting House not think that the reason people watch soaps – and drama more broadly – is to get away from this never-ending pandemic?

Leaving aside, the fact that anybody using Eastenders as a life lesson would likely have wound up dead or incarcerated years ago, is it really up to television dramas to set a good example?

Apparently not.