Communication That Resonates and Informs on COVID

"We need to be wearing masks in public when we cannot social distance. It's really critically important."
"We have the scientific evidence of how important mask-wearing is to prevent those droplets from reaching others."
Dr.Deborah Birx, response co-ordinator, White House Coronavirus Task Force

"You have to convey that this is a serious issue and that people should take precautions. However, you don't want to make people feel fatalistic or hopeless."
"You want to make people feel like they have self-efficacy and you want to make them feel like what they do matters."
"If  you think the virus is very, very infectious, you're basically just saying to yourself, we're all going to get it anyway, why bother taking these annoying precautions?"
"People are already very misinformed about how infectious COVID-19 is. they already think it is far more infectious than it actually is."
"Just kind of going out in the media and saying, for example, that COVID is extremely infectious might upwardly bias people's estimates even more and induce more fatalism."
Jesper Akesson, managing director, The Behaviouralist Research Consultancy, U.K.

The findings of a new study emphasize that acutely warning people of the danger inherent in a virus that has proven to be extremely infectious with sometimes extremely serious outcomes, dulls their sense of self-responsibility to act rationally. When they are confronted with a dire warning emphasizing the danger of a widespread public menace like the SARS-CoV-2 virus, many people tend to believe there is nothing they can do to avoid it, they might just as well do nothing.

Lake of the Ozarks, Mo., on May 23, 2020.Twitter/Lawler50 / Reuters

"This result [that people massively overestimate how infectious the disease is, believing the average person spread the disease to 28 other people] is consistent with previous studies that suggest individuals are likely to overestimate risks that are unfamiliar, outside of their control, inspire feelings of dread, and receive extensive media coverage."
Report on Study, British and American economists

One of the difficulties in communicating effectively to a concerned public details of a widespread public health issue is that people who tend to be readily alarmed will simply adopt a fatalistic attitude toward the situation. Steven Taylor, as a professor at the University of British Columbia has written of the psychology of pandemics and argues that governments, attempting to strike a balance between communicating to low anxiety and high anxiety sectors of their population face a difficult proposition.

On the one hand, low anxiety people respond to stark messaging while high anxiety people require a more gentle introduction to the seriousness of a disease that has laid waste to many countries' health systems and economies, and the need for their populations to react sensibly in self-protection for the greater good of the entire population. Strike the wrong communication note with the wrong audience and an effect completely at odds with the communication's intention is certain to emerge.

Case in point: in the United States where the death toll has surpassed 100,000 from COVID-19, the Memorial Day weekend signalling the start of summer in the United States, saw hordes of people  out sunbathing on beaches, fishing from boats, strolling on boardwalks and generally comporting themselves with scant attention to the warnings to continue social isolation. Coronavirus restrictions have been relaxed in all 50 states.

Beachgoers swarmed Indiana Dunes National Park in Porter Sunday

In Illinois and New York, restaurants remain closed for in-person dining and hair salons remain closed, but in many southern states most businesses have opened, albeit with restrictions on capacity. A week earlier, a record number of new COVID-10 cases were reported in Alabama, Arkansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, New Hampshire, Maryland, Maine, Nevada, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin, according to Reuters. There is uncertainty whether this has resulted from a second wave.

The United States has seen the highest number of cases reported in the world, at over 1.6 million. Forecasting models for potential deaths by June 1, reached the figure of the projected 100,000 mark well before the turn of the month. Many state governors and health officials have issued pleas to the public to wear masks in stores and in public, messages that have been received with resistance from some of the population, evidenced by social media full of videos of businesses turning angry customers refusing to wear face masks away from entry.

Packed beaches in Florida and other gulf states on the Memorial Day weekend, left authorities with little option but to break up the large gatherings. Parties elsewhere with people crowded into pools and clubs elbow-to-elbow, have been prominently viewed in videos posted on social media. A party at a club in Houston saw the city's mayor order firefighters across the metropolitan area to enforce social distancing rules.

During the study on communicating with the public over the presence of an infectious disease like COVID, the lead author, Jesper Akesson, acknowledged a feeling of encouragement that most participants were positively impacted by hearing expert information about the virus with some participants having chosen not to believe the information and half retaining their original beliefs at first. But as the study ended, most had revised their opinion in favour of the information given by health experts.

A large crowd enjoys the boardwalk in Ocean City on May 24.