I think you've described the primary issue right here.
There frequently seems to be a lack of effective, timely, and unambiguous communication on such topics. It seems like much of what's out there is either overly dense and confusing (to the layperson), or overly simplified to the point of not addressing the psychology of what people are worrying about. There's often no attempt to explain the _why_, and sometimes the tone even comes across as a bit condescending.
Such an environment seems like the perfect recipe to encourage rampant speculation and the subsequent spread of misinformation. Simply telling people "you're not an expert", no matter how well founded, doesn't really help anything here.
There's a snippet of a few minutes from the Washington State press release last night (starting @ 10:25) that I thought was an example of reasonably good communication on the topic. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kILL-maWoJw&t=625)
In a lot of ways, public health communication has the same problem as Federal Reserve communication -- any communication is itself likely to influence the situation.
Consequently, the standard playbook seems to be "Say as little as possible, to avoid doing harm."
It feels like part of the problem is public communication not having adapted to the internet age. And we'll probably have to wait another ~10-20 years for that generational + academic shift.
Historically, you could get away with restricting communication on the limited number of mass market broadcast mediums.
Now, restricted information just creates a vacuum filled by random other internet voices.
That (video) was a very effective presentation ... telling the public the knowns, decreasing the natural fears of the unknowns that have been amped-up by weeks of (relatively uninformed) news.
This sort of communication should have begun weeks ago. People need assurance that this is a nasty flu, not the plague.
Comments
I think you've described the primary issue right here.
There frequently seems to be a lack of effective, timely, and unambiguous communication on such topics. It seems like much of what's out there is either overly dense and confusing (to the layperson), or overly simplified to the point of not addressing the psychology of what people are worrying about. There's often no attempt to explain the _why_, and sometimes the tone even comes across as a bit condescending.
Such an environment seems like the perfect recipe to encourage rampant speculation and the subsequent spread of misinformation. Simply telling people "you're not an expert", no matter how well founded, doesn't really help anything here.
There's a snippet of a few minutes from the Washington State press release last night (starting @ 10:25) that I thought was an example of reasonably good communication on the topic. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kILL-maWoJw&t=625)
In a lot of ways, public health communication has the same problem as Federal Reserve communication -- any communication is itself likely to influence the situation.
Consequently, the standard playbook seems to be "Say as little as possible, to avoid doing harm."
It feels like part of the problem is public communication not having adapted to the internet age. And we'll probably have to wait another ~10-20 years for that generational + academic shift.
Historically, you could get away with restricting communication on the limited number of mass market broadcast mediums.
Now, restricted information just creates a vacuum filled by random other internet voices.
That (video) was a very effective presentation ... telling the public the knowns, decreasing the natural fears of the unknowns that have been amped-up by weeks of (relatively uninformed) news.
This sort of communication should have begun weeks ago. People need assurance that this is a nasty flu, not the plague.
The deadliest epidemic in history was a nasty flu (the 1918 Spanish flu). That killed around 50 million people.
This virus appears to be at least 100X deadlier than the endemic seasonal flu.