Many will have wondered what it would take for story-after-story on the facts, figures and impacts of COVID-19 to be significantly displaced from our television screens, airwaves, print and online news.

IN OTHER NEWS:

The death of George Floyd has provided that catalyst - not so much of itself but of the consequences that have arisen from his totally unnecessary passing. It is not the first time that the untimely death of a man of colour has enraged the American nation to the extent that Floyd's has.

The #BlackLivesMatter movement quite rightly ensures that there is awareness of every such death including the recent shooting of unarmed jogger Ahmaud Arbery on a suburban street in South Georgia.

On that occasion, it appears that a father and son, one a former police officer and prosecutor, took citizen-arrest powers into their own hands.

Like the Floyd killing, there was video evidence although it appears not immediately available after Arbery's death.

His assailants were eventually charged but despite a not insignificant outpouring of defiance and emotion, there was no broader impact as has been seen over the past eight days following Floyd's death.

There seems universal acceptance - from President Donald Trump down to men and women of all races, colour and creeds across the nation - that Floyd was suffocated and killed by a police officer kneeling continuously on his neck.

Whilst there was perhaps more uncertainty in the case of Arbery, it is more likely that the nation's early attention to an obsession with the impact of coronavirus in late February diverted its attention away.

Now despite the continuing high incidence of cases and still significant death toll in the US, the population has moved on from that single focus. So much so that the passion of the protest has caused an almost total disregard of the physical distancing philosophy that in theory is still in place.

George Floyd's killing has enraged a nation - and it seems well beyond - in the same way that the police beating of Rodney King in 1991 and the assassination of Doctor Martin Luther King in 1968 motivated a broad uprising of anger. It is noteworthy that in one way or another each of the seminal moments was captured on film or video.

Whether this provides a certainty in the minds of others that each become something worth fighting for is arguable - but it sets them apart from equally tragic instances that are not. Despite the efforts of Dr King and others and even the election of Barack Obama for two terms to the nation's highest office inequality on the basis of race in America remains palpable.

It has been exacerbated by the uneven impact of COVID-19 on coloured and other disadvantaged communities in the US.

Movements like BLM that emerged in 2013 after the alleged murderer of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was acquitted, have carried the torch to maintain awareness to the point that from time to time serious protests against black deaths at the hands of authorities take place. But nothing like the rage that now engulfs cities right across the US. After seven days of peaceful protest and then more serious unrest, violence and crime there seemed little serious attempt at leadership until yesterday.

Two speeches were telecast across the globe - one from the leader of the free world, the other from the brother of the victim.

Donald Trump's words would have been regarded even by his detractors as better-than-usual.

Why they were so long in coming is questionable - so too some of the content.

But there was a plan - even if much of it appeared to be based on detracting from the actions of his political opponents at state and local government level. There was also tough talk and bravado - including a brazen walk through the park to visit St John's Church the nursery of which had been damaged by arson the previous evening.

It included an immediate curfew and clampdown in Washington DC - the sole jurisdiction in the US where the President has the power to implement the action that Trump had foreshadowed. Two hours later and there was little sign that at least the peaceful protesters were taking any notice.

But it was still daylight - and much of the earlier bad behaviour had arisen after dark.

Terrence Floyd, on the other hand, came from a position of no power whatsoever.

His unsophisticated words were well delivered and meaningful - re-iterating that his late brother would not have abided anything other than peaceful protest. His intervention would have empowered the many who are following exactly that course.