5 Pandemic Mistakes We Keep Repeating

[NickFitz]

Somewhat US-centric, but a lot of it is relevant to the UK too, and worth reading in light of some of the shrill messaging around new variants: 5 Pandemic Mistakes We Keep Repeating by Zeynep Tufekci, on scientists' and authorities' multiple and repeated failures in communication with the public.

What went wrong? The same thing that’s going wrong right now with the reporting on whether vaccines will protect recipients against the new viral variants. Some outlets emphasize the worst or misinterpret the research. Some public-health officials are wary of encouraging the relaxation of any precautions. Some prominent experts on social media—even those with seemingly solid credentials—tend to respond to everything with alarm and sirens. So the message that got heard was that vaccines will not prevent transmission, or that they won’t work against new variants, or that we don’t know if they will. What the public needs to hear, though, is that based on existing data, we expect them to work fairly well—but we’ll learn more about precisely how effective they’ll be over time, and that tweaks may make them even better.

[SueEllen]

This is right.

They were doing it on Sunday after a warm Saturday here -

Scolding and Shaming


Throughout the past year, traditional and social media have been caught up in a cycle of shaming—made worse by being so unscientific and misguided. How dare you go to the beach? newspapers have scolded us for months, despite lacking evidence that this posed any significant threat to public health.

Even when authorities relax the rules a bit, they do not always follow through in a sensible manner. In the United Kingdom, after some locales finally started allowing children to play on playgrounds—something that was already way overdue—they quickly ruled that parents must not socialize while their kids have a normal moment. Why not? Who knows?

[mattster]

I think most people have a pretty good sense now of what is risky and what isn't. Outdoor stuff, according to the scientists, is not risky. We've followed the rules pretty well until now, but I'd be lying if I said we hadn't had a few dog walks etc over the past month where we just happened to coincide with other people we know doing the same.
Haven't done any inside shennanigans but it'll be two weeks from the jab come this Friday, and I feel a desperately overdue eyetest coming on - and not of the Barnard Castle variety.

[SueEllen]

I think most people have a pretty good sense now of what is risky and what isn't. Outdoor stuff, according to the scientists, is not risky.

Then how come people aren't allowed to do outdoor non-contact sport?

[mattster]

Then how come people aren't allowed to do outdoor non-contact sport?

That was kind of my point. The rules as they stand do not seem to align perfectly with what we are told is risky - especially with respect to outdoor stuff, which the scientists are now telling us is very low risk indeed (as in, no confirmed transmission in outdoor settings). So people are making their own decisions about some of those things.

[NickFitz]

Then how come people aren't allowed to do outdoor non-contact sport?

I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that about a year ago, a lot less was known about the risks so they imposed strict and wide-ranging restrictions, which was the right thing to do for public safety at the time. Now more is known, there are areas in which restrictions could be relaxed, but if you say "You don't have to do x any more, it turns out that was never much of a risk" then social media will be full of idiots claiming that "There's no proof you should have to do y, z and q either, they just admitted it's all bollocks" and so on.

[northernladuk]

I think most people have a pretty good sense now of what is risky and what isn't. Outdoor stuff, according to the scientists, is not risky. We've followed the rules pretty well until now, but I'd be lying if I said we hadn't had a few dog walks etc over the past month where we just happened to coincide with other people we know doing the same.
Haven't done any inside shennanigans but it'll be two weeks from the jab come this Friday, and I feel a desperately overdue eyetest coming on - and not of the Barnard Castle variety.

Most maybe, but problem when you leave anything to the publics interpretation it's going to go south due to a smallish minority of idiots. Problem is exacerbated with time though so people that would generally apply common sense to situations just don't anymore.

A good example of interpretation is in your own post.. Outdoor stuff is not risky. That statement as given is not true so it's back to the general public to decide, and that generally doesn't go too well. The fact there is a huge spike every time restrictions are relaxed is testament to that.

[mattster]

Most maybe, but problem when you leave anything to the publics interpretation it's going to go south due to a smallish minority of idiots. Problem is exacerbated with time though so people that would generally apply common sense to situations just don't anymore.

A good example of interpretation is in your own post.. Outdoor stuff is not risky. That statement as given is not true so it's back to the general public to decide, and that generally doesn't go too well. The fact there is a huge spike every time restrictions are relaxed is testament to that.

I don't disagree, and I suppose "not risky" is not the best way of phrasing it - everything carries some risk, it is just a matter of degree. From reading a few of the SAGE types on Twitter and elsewhere, there does seem to be something of a concensus that outdoor interactions are an order of magnitude less risky than indoor ones, which has informed our own (small) bending of the lockdown rules. A balance needs to be struck between updating guidance based on new evidence (which does seem to make quite a lot of people quite irrationally angry), and freeing up some lockdown restrictions that are (and, even, were) perhaps too draconian. If you can at least guide people towards safer interactions, e.g. by allowing outdoor meet ups - then that might help prevent people making their own, less informed, decisions and meeting up somewhere riskier.