Thread by @brownecfm

1. This is an excellent question. To understand how Covid-19 has become a taboo subject, there are a number of factors that must be considered.

First, the dynamic that exists between governments, public health, the media, and healthcare professionals.

https://twitter.com/s0f0nisba/status/1822903610570834357

2. The relationship between government and public health is often seen as follows: governments taking advice from independent scientists and then following it. However, public health agencies are far from independent - they are nested within governmental structures.

3. As such, public health agencies are, by definition, political in nature. They are not independent. But, this political character of public health is not straightforward (in the sense of government leadership telling them what to say). Rather, it is a subtle relationship.

4. This subtle relationship is often characterised by 'informal' conversations that steer the narrative (many years ago, I spent months researching how epistemic communities function in these types of situations).

5. The end result of this is that senior figures in government come to believe the recommendations of public health agencies without recognising the extent to which these recommendations *were originally steered by government*. This becomes more cemented as time passes.

6. The media gets information predominantly from official public health sources (which, as described, are actually political in nature). However, many journalists don't realise this, thinking that the information they receive to be apolitical and independent.

7. This is also the case for many healthcare professionals, who see official guidance as coming from a completely apolitical source. The result of this is that what was originally a *political* decision becomes seen as, effectively, 'following the best science available'.

8. This effect also applies to the politicians themselves.

In short, this creates a deadly feedback loop between government, public health, the media, and healthcare professionals *all based on the false assumption that policies on Covid-19 are apolitical*.

9. Second, most governments are aware - institutionally at least - that they made a number of significant mistakes regarding Covid-19. To admit mistakes is to admit culpability.

10. Third, governments and the media fully understand that the general public now associates the word, 'Covid' with lockdowns and other non-pharmaceutical interventions. These were - understandably - unpopular measures, so mentioning Covid at all risks losing electoral support.

11. If the government isn't mentioning it, it isn't news.

All of the above has created a powerful societal agreement to not talk about Covid. This then filters back up to policymakers, who respond by doing the same.

12. It is a top-down and bottom-up social structure that erases Covid-19 from both policy and general discourse, and, as such, is a structure that reinforces itself.

As the virus continues to mutate, transmit, disable, and kill.

/end