Another point that I neglected to emphasise in my thread last night: hard as it is for a lot of folks on here to process, most people who are flouting public health advice are generally doing so in good faith. And there's been no effective response to that.
https://twitter.com/Quinnae_Moon/status/1336188459204014080
What I mean by that is that they either don't realise they're flouting anything *at all*, that they have misjudged their personal risk, that they're working on incomplete, or out of date information, and/or that they have misplaced their trust in certain authority figures.
This is even before you get to all the cognitive biases that make us poor judges of risk against an invisible threat in the *first place.* (Just another reason in a very long list of why this can't be left to individual initiative).
And when you have people like the whats-his-face Mayor of Austin issuing public health advice while on holiday in Mexico, or the governor of California partying at a fancy restaurant, this... muddles the message a bit.
Understand that for most citizens, they'll look at this and go, "well if it's safe enough for the governor to go to a fancy restaurant/travel abroad, then surely I'll be fine if I do." I'm loathe to blame them personally at that stage. They've been fatally *mislead.*
It's easier for people to imagine The Scofflaw as a nakedly avaricious, selfish creature, knowingly and gleefully killing others with every breath.
The truth is that we're still confronting devastating informational gaps. Many people are acting in good faith on bad info.
The truth is that we're still confronting devastating informational gaps. Many people are acting in good faith on bad info.
How do I know this? Well, how else do you explain these ubiquitous signs at pharmacies?
(Photo credit: Victor J. Blue, Bloomberg).
(Photo credit: Victor J. Blue, Bloomberg).
A headline about successful vaccine trials buzzed around the world. People knew that 'we had a vaccine.' But the vast majority had not read the thousands of words written about the timeline, manufacturing, the distribution process, etc.
Most information about the pandemic has been absorbed in that partial, headline-level manner. And people act on that incomplete, misunderstood information. They're not evil or stupid, they just have lives.
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