Treyfish
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[h=1]:tiphat
osted on Ian M Mackay' s blog, go read it!
Past Time to Tell the Public: “It Will Probably Go Pandemic, and We Should All Prepare Now”[/h]
Posted onFebruary 23, 2020Author
Ian M Mackay, PhD (EIC)2 Comments
by Jody Lanard and Peter M. Sandman
NOTE FROM IAN: The expert risk communication team of Lanard and Sandman has given me permission to post their very well-considered reply to my question of them just on 24 hours ago, here. I’m not an expert in this space so I sought their very experienced thoughts about changing my tone around the COVID-19 multi-country epidemic before I started doing so yesterday. Here is what they had to say… We are starting to hear from experts and officials who now believe a COVID-19 pandemic is more and more likely. They want to use the “P word,” and also start talking more about what communities and individuals can and should do to prepare. On February 22, Australian virologist Ian Mackay asked us for our thoughts on this phase of COVID-19 risk communication.
Here is our response. [h=2]Yes, it is past time to say “pandemic” – and to stop saying “stop”[/h]
It’s a good time to think about how to use the “P word” (pandemic) in talking about COVID-19. Or rather, it is past time.
It is important to help people understand that while you think – if you do think so – that this is going to be pandemic in terms of becoming very widespread, no one knows yet how much severe disease there will be around the world over short periods of time. “Will it be a mild, or moderate, or severe pandemic? Too soon to say, but at the moment, there are some tentative signs that….”
The most crucial (and overdue) risk communication task for the next few days is to help people visualize their communities when “keeping it out” – containment – is no longer relevant. The P word is a good way to launch this message.
But the P word alone won’t help the public understand what’s about to change: the end of most quarantines, travel restrictions, contact tracing, and other measures designed to keep “them” from infecting “us,” and the switch to measures like canceling mass events designed to keep us from infecting each other.
We are near-certain that the desperate-sounding last-ditch containment messaging of recent days is contributing to a massive global misperception about the near-term future. The theme of WHO’s and many governments’ messages – that the “window of opportunity” to stop spread of the virus is closing – is like the famous cover page of Nevil Shute’s On the Beach: “There is still time … Brother.”
For weeks we have been trying to get officials to talk early about the main goal of containment: to slow the spread of the virus, not to stop it. And to explain that containment efforts would eventually end. And to help people learn about “after containment.” This risk communication has not happened yet in most places....
So here is one more pitch for openness about containment. Officials: Please read Containment as Signal, Swine Flu Risk Miscommunication, which we wrote in 2009.
One horrible effect of this continued “stop the pandemic” daydream masquerading as a policy goal: It is driving counter-productive and outrage-inducing measures by many countries against travelers from other countries, even their own citizens back from other countries. But possibly more horrible: The messaging is driving resources toward “stopping,” and away from the main potential benefit of containment – slowing the spread of the pandemic and thereby buying a little more time to prepare for what’s coming.
We hope that governments and healthcare institutions are using this time wisely. We know that ordinary citizens are not being asked to do so. In most countries – including our United States and your Australia – ordinary citizens have not been asked to prepare. Instead, they have been led to expect that their governments will keep the virus from their doors. [h=2]Take the risk of scaring people[/h]
Whenever we introduce the word “pandemic,” it’s important to validate that it’s a scary word – both to experts and to non-experts – because it justifiably contains the implication of something potentially really bad, and definitely really disruptive, for an unknown period of time. This implication is true and unavoidable, even if the overall pattern of disease ends up being mild, like the 2009-10 “swine flu” pand....
It’s simply not true, in principle or in practice, that you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t! Over-alarming risk messages are far more forgivable than over-reassuring ones. [h=2]Push people to prepare, and guide their prep [/h]
This is the most culpabl......
Hardly any officials are telling civil society and the general public how to get ready for this pandemic.
Even officials who say very alarming things about the prospects of a pandemic mostly focus on how their agencies are preparing, not on how the people they misperceive as “audience” should prepare. “Audience” is the wrong frame. We are all stakeholders, and we don’t just want to hear what officials are doing. We want to hear what we can do too.
We want – and need – to hear advice like this:
Suggesting things people can do to prepare for a possible hard time to come doesn’t just get them better prepared logistically. It also helps get them better prepared emotionally. It helps get them through the Oh My God (OMG) moment everyone needs to have, and needs to get through, preferably without being accused of hysteria.
.....roving.
And you can work on your new habit alone, and also in a pro-social communitarian way. Others can help you do it, and you can help them.
And it yields real harm reduction! It is arguably the endpoint of what washing your hands is for, and it helps when you can’t wash your hands out in the world.
Like all good pandemic preparedness recommendations, it helps you rehearse emotionally, as well as logistically. [h=2]The bottom line[/h]
Every single official we know is having multiple “Oh my God” moments, as new COVID-19 developments occur and new findings emerge. OMG – there is a fair amount of transmission by infected people with mild or subclinical cases! OMG – there is a high viral load early on in nasal and pharyngeal samples! OMG – the Diamond Princess, how can that have been allowed to happen! And on and on....
:tiphat:https://virologydownunder.com/past-...ly-go-pandemic-and-we-should-all-prepare-now/
osted on Ian M Mackay' s blog, go read it!Past Time to Tell the Public: “It Will Probably Go Pandemic, and We Should All Prepare Now”[/h]
Posted onFebruary 23, 2020Author
Ian M Mackay, PhD (EIC)2 Comments
by Jody Lanard and Peter M. Sandman
NOTE FROM IAN: The expert risk communication team of Lanard and Sandman has given me permission to post their very well-considered reply to my question of them just on 24 hours ago, here. I’m not an expert in this space so I sought their very experienced thoughts about changing my tone around the COVID-19 multi-country epidemic before I started doing so yesterday. Here is what they had to say… We are starting to hear from experts and officials who now believe a COVID-19 pandemic is more and more likely. They want to use the “P word,” and also start talking more about what communities and individuals can and should do to prepare. On February 22, Australian virologist Ian Mackay asked us for our thoughts on this phase of COVID-19 risk communication.
Here is our response. [h=2]Yes, it is past time to say “pandemic” – and to stop saying “stop”[/h]
It’s a good time to think about how to use the “P word” (pandemic) in talking about COVID-19. Or rather, it is past time.
It is important to help people understand that while you think – if you do think so – that this is going to be pandemic in terms of becoming very widespread, no one knows yet how much severe disease there will be around the world over short periods of time. “Will it be a mild, or moderate, or severe pandemic? Too soon to say, but at the moment, there are some tentative signs that….”
The most crucial (and overdue) risk communication task for the next few days is to help people visualize their communities when “keeping it out” – containment – is no longer relevant. The P word is a good way to launch this message.
But the P word alone won’t help the public understand what’s about to change: the end of most quarantines, travel restrictions, contact tracing, and other measures designed to keep “them” from infecting “us,” and the switch to measures like canceling mass events designed to keep us from infecting each other.
We are near-certain that the desperate-sounding last-ditch containment messaging of recent days is contributing to a massive global misperception about the near-term future. The theme of WHO’s and many governments’ messages – that the “window of opportunity” to stop spread of the virus is closing – is like the famous cover page of Nevil Shute’s On the Beach: “There is still time … Brother.”
For weeks we have been trying to get officials to talk early about the main goal of containment: to slow the spread of the virus, not to stop it. And to explain that containment efforts would eventually end. And to help people learn about “after containment.” This risk communication has not happened yet in most places....
So here is one more pitch for openness about containment. Officials: Please read Containment as Signal, Swine Flu Risk Miscommunication, which we wrote in 2009.
One horrible effect of this continued “stop the pandemic” daydream masquerading as a policy goal: It is driving counter-productive and outrage-inducing measures by many countries against travelers from other countries, even their own citizens back from other countries. But possibly more horrible: The messaging is driving resources toward “stopping,” and away from the main potential benefit of containment – slowing the spread of the pandemic and thereby buying a little more time to prepare for what’s coming.
We hope that governments and healthcare institutions are using this time wisely. We know that ordinary citizens are not being asked to do so. In most countries – including our United States and your Australia – ordinary citizens have not been asked to prepare. Instead, they have been led to expect that their governments will keep the virus from their doors. [h=2]Take the risk of scaring people[/h]
Whenever we introduce the word “pandemic,” it’s important to validate that it’s a scary word – both to experts and to non-experts – because it justifiably contains the implication of something potentially really bad, and definitely really disruptive, for an unknown period of time. This implication is true and unavoidable, even if the overall pattern of disease ends up being mild, like the 2009-10 “swine flu” pand....
It’s simply not true, in principle or in practice, that you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t! Over-alarming risk messages are far more forgivable than over-reassuring ones. [h=2]Push people to prepare, and guide their prep [/h]
This is the most culpabl......
Hardly any officials are telling civil society and the general public how to get ready for this pandemic.
Even officials who say very alarming things about the prospects of a pandemic mostly focus on how their agencies are preparing, not on how the people they misperceive as “audience” should prepare. “Audience” is the wrong frame. We are all stakeholders, and we don’t just want to hear what officials are doing. We want to hear what we can do too.
We want – and need – to hear advice like this:
- Try to get a few extra months’ worth of prescription meds, if possible.
- Think through now how we will take care of sick family members while trying not to get infected.
- Cross-train key staff at work so one person’s absence won’t derail our organization’s ability to function.
- Practice touching our faces less. So how about a face-counter app like the step-counters so many of us use?
- Replace handshakes with elbow-bumps (the “Ebola handshake”).
- Start building harm-reduction habits like pushing elevator buttons with a knuckle instead of a fingertip.
Suggesting things people can do to prepare for a possible hard time to come doesn’t just get them better prepared logistically. It also helps get them better prepared emotionally. It helps get them through the Oh My God (OMG) moment everyone needs to have, and needs to get through, preferably without being accused of hysteria.
.....roving.
And you can work on your new habit alone, and also in a pro-social communitarian way. Others can help you do it, and you can help them.
And it yields real harm reduction! It is arguably the endpoint of what washing your hands is for, and it helps when you can’t wash your hands out in the world.
Like all good pandemic preparedness recommendations, it helps you rehearse emotionally, as well as logistically. [h=2]The bottom line[/h]
Every single official we know is having multiple “Oh my God” moments, as new COVID-19 developments occur and new findings emerge. OMG – there is a fair amount of transmission by infected people with mild or subclinical cases! OMG – there is a high viral load early on in nasal and pharyngeal samples! OMG – the Diamond Princess, how can that have been allowed to happen! And on and on....
:tiphat:https://virologydownunder.com/past-...ly-go-pandemic-and-we-should-all-prepare-now/
