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Professor Ian Donald

@iandonald_psych

16 Apr 20

1. The idea that people will get bored with the restrictions and will stop following them if they go on has been expressed by Govt ministers, journalists, and the opposition. Keir Starmer said that without an exit strategy people will break the restrictions. . .

2. It's not clear what the evidence is for this. What we know of people's behaviour in emergencies suggest that they won't do that as long as they perceive restrictions as necessary. It's therefore important that the risk is not downplayed by politicians or media.

4. Research reveals that when evacuated and instructed to follow particular behaviour, people will only go back to normal behaviour once they believe they are out of risk. There is no reason assume that would not be the case with #coronavirus restrictions.

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Professor Ian Donald

@iandonald_psych

8 Apr 20

1. Some realism on how long the current #coronavirus restrictions in the UK will be maintained would be helpful. There is surprise in some reports that they might not be relaxed after the 3 week review next week. They will not. They won't be after the next 3 week review either.

2. Let's consider some logic (which could be wrong). The numbers of infections and fatalities will reach a high level - a peak is misleading. Once it reaches that level numbers won't suddenly fall again. The peak will become a plateau. It might then, after time, gradually fall

3. It will fall slower than it increased, but let's pretend the rate of reduction is as fast as the increase was. Let's assume that it's another week before the maximum infections or fatalities reach the peak, and also assume another week for the numbers to start to fall.

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Professor Ian Donald

@iandonald_psych

3 Apr 20

1. The action of #clapforNHS and others is important - it can help to keep our key workers healthy.
I read a tweet today saying that while nice, clapping in this way is pointless and doesn't achieve anything. That is wrong, for a number of reasons.
At a most basic level. . .

2. showing our appreciation for key workers and especially those treating #coronavirus patients can increase their morale. The difference that can make to them personally can be significant. We owe them that. But also it can impact on their enthusiasm; their motivation. . .

3. and that helps everyone else. Feeling enthusiastic and motivated can make the difference between going to work and not - getting out of bed to face another day and not. Our key workers are already motivated, but an extra push can help on bad days.

Beyond that there are . . .

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Professor Ian Donald

@iandonald_psych

2 Apr 20

1. The #coronavirus pandemic is a life-threatening emergency that shares a lot of similarities with other events, many of which become disasters. What we know about behaviour during those events can help us to understand what is happening during the pandemic and what should . . .

2. be happening.
The current emergency differs from many - though not all -in that it is happening relatively slowly, compared to a fire for example. A common characteristic of most emergencies is that they are uncommon and often ambiguous, especially early on. The rarity . . .

3. of events like this means that people don't have an existing 'script' of how to behave. Consequently they look to others to show them or tell the what to do. A critical issue then becomes who people look to for information and guidance. The pervasive and persuasive . . .

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Professor Ian Donald

@iandonald_psych

25 Mar 20

1. Day 5 isolation, day 2 bi-solation, week 3 social distancing

Earlier I tweeted the end of a letter from my son's head teacher. A lot of people said they found it helpful, so I thought that it might be worth posting more - as stress relief - it's OK to be laid back, phew!

2. "You might be inclined to create a minute by minute timetable for your children. You have high hopes of hours of learning, including online activities, science experiments, and book reports. You’ll limit technology until everything is done! But here’s the thing..."

3. "Our children are just as scared as we are right now. Our children can not only hear everything that is going on around them, but they feel our constant tension and anxiety. They have never experienced anything like this before. . . "

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Professor Ian Donald

@iandonald_psych

20 Mar 20

1 The UK govt. strategy to managing the #coronavirus epidemic relies on getting two broad things right.

Those are the science of epidemiology and the biology; the other is the science of psychology and the behaviour.

They need to know what the infection rate is and predict...

2 what it will be in the future.

Once they know that they need to the know how to change behaviour so that it will reduce the infection to a manageable level, whatever that is, without unsustainable unintended damage to economy and people's normal health and wellbeing. . .

3 We have seen the epidemiology modelling feeding into the government's strategy and the outcomes of different options. That has clearly changed and developed with the availability of new data, leading to some shifts in strategy.

That is a welcome transparency, but. . .

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