Saw this on another forum and thought it interesting...
"I just want to point out something very important to understand and interpret government announcements and released data around the world.
Governments around the world are currently engaged in a process called "behaviour change communication" (BCC).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_ ... munication
I worked here for the European Commission in the early 2000's on a multi-year, multi-million BCC project.
The primary objective of BCC is not to increase the knowledge and understanding of the population, it's to provide the information most likely to modify their behaviour in a way that will result in the best public health outcomes.
In layman's terms you need to make them scared enough to follow the advice, but not so scared they begin acting irrationally.
So in Cambodia that meant making people scared enough of HIV to use condoms and not engage in high risk behaviours, but not so scared that they start stigmatising or acting out against high risk groups or carriers.
It's a delicate balancing act.
With Covid-19 that's also what's happening. The objective is to make people scared enough that they follow government advice but not so scared that they start acting irrationally (hording, not turning up to work for jobs deemed essential etc).
This is why we aren't being provided with detailed data regarding the health status and demographics of deaths. And why you should not treat government positions as gospel.
For example, if you told people that 99% of deaths are in people with existing co-morbidities, people without co-morbidities may be less inclined to follow advice, especially if it has an economic impact.
Just as telling people here 20 years ago, that if you or your partner weren't gay, a needle user or consumer/provider of prostitution your chances of contacting HIV we extremely low.
If you want to know what information your government currently thinks is best suited to maintain your continued compliance then listen to the news.
If you want to become knowledgeable on the disease and its impacts follow the daily stream of papers being released on sites like
www.ssrn.com.
For example studies were indicating 6-8 weeks ago that the R value for this virus was much lower in environments with high temperature, humidity and UV exposure.
But as the message that summer will reduce the infectiousness was not aligned with current BCC objectives regarding lockdown compliance, that information would be treated with scepticism. While any study results are aligned with current BCC objectives will be prompted.
This also explains the differing information given between different countries. Countries with a highly compliant society don't need to turn the fear dial quite so far (e.g. Germany, Japan, Singapore, South Korea).
While countries with a more "relaxed" tradition with authority (e.g. Italy, Cambodia, Latin America) need the dial turned quite a lot higher to deliver compliance.
Anyway, just a thought I wanted to share."
