Advertising amid COVID-19

It struck me today as I page through news site after site, how valuable their inventory may have just become as citizens are trying to stay up on the situation at hand, particularly as new information becomes available almost hourly, and flooding news sites. I would imagine that keywords relevant to the virus and related topics have also become expensive. What I am seeing, however, is actually a lack of ads on many of the news pages, just some sponsored stores and the "clickbait" type of ads that are probably part of automated campaigns. This is an interesting moment to me in advertising as there is likely a lot to be gained from exploiting the scenario, but it feels like brands are largely not acting on it. It will be very interesting to see if there are post-pandemic reports and studies on how the advertising industry approached a situation like this, versus the more positive moments like the Superbowl blackout.