on the one hand, i'm not surprised that more people blame the public than the government for the pandemic. on the other, as someone studying illness and society, i want to talk through why blaming the public is a) wrong and b) exactly what the government wants you to do

thread

a little bit of context: i'm a phd student. one of the things i study is illness (and pandemics) and the place illness holds in society. doing a phd doesn't mean my opinion is any more important than anyone else's, but it does mean that i have some insight that may be useful 2/

when people say the public is to blame, what do they mean? it’s hard to know exactly, but we can be fairly sure that it's not just 'people are to blame because they spread the virus'. if it were, we'd also be blaming doctors and nurses for spreading covid, and we aren't 3/

so if it isn't just 'people in general', who is to blame when people say 'the public'? more often than not, anger at 'the public' seems to be directed at people who break the rules, who are seen as one or many of: reckless, selfish, immoral, ignorant, greedy, dangerous, etc. 4/

we often see people saying how unfair it is that they've respected the rules and stayed inside, and complaining about people who haven't. in the media, we've seen endless images of groups seen as breaking the rules or being reckless (at beaches, on buses, at protests, etc.) 5/

it is of course very understandable that people who have stayed inside and tried to reduce their role in spreading the virus feel frustrated that other people haven't, and so blame the public for the scale of the pandemic. but that still doesn't actually mean they are to blame 6/

for us to say that they are to blame, we would have to be able to say that had everybody respected the rules laid out by the government, we wouldn't be in the situation we are in now. and when you look at it like that, the idea that the public are to blame starts to fall apart 7/

if everyone had followed the rules, would the pandemic be 'over' in the uk, or like it is in new zealand? counter-factual history (asking 'what if?') can never be 100% accurate, but we can say with some degree of certainty that even if they had, this wouldn't be the case 8/

how can we say that? if we look at various rules and policies, we can see the government has frequently made decisions that encourage rather than stop the spread of the virus. think about 'eat out to help out', or the fact people flying into the uk still aren't being tested 9/

even if everyone had respected the rules, we wouldn't be having a 'normal' christmas, or be where new zealand are right now. that tells us two things: 1) the public can't be solely to blame for the pandemic, 2) the government must be partly to blame for the pandemic /10

you could still argue that the public made it worse, that if people had respected those rules, it wouldn't be as bad as it is now. and that's probably true. but then we have to ask a trickier question: how much are members of the public to blame for not respecting the rules? /11

now this is a tricky question because we simply can't know. i'm not going to claim that some people haven't made 'selfish' or 'reckless' choices. but what i want to argue is that the government deliberately created an environment where people would make those kinds of choices /12

from the offset, the government provided deliberately vague or confusing information. they used unclear language. they used misleading graphics and biased data. they have made several sharp u-turns on the rules. often the rules have appeared contradictory, or unfair /13

one minute they're demanding people go back to work, the next they're saying everyone should work from home. one minute they're providing a financial incentive for people to go out to eat, the next they're shutting restaurants and pubs and telling people to not to go out /14

some rules have also been non-sensical. you can see your partner, but only if you stay in a hotel. you can see your family, but only if you go to a pub. and if the rules don't make any sense, or seem unfair (because they are), then people are a lot less likely to follow them /15

in fact, those kinds of rules actually encourage rule-breaking. it's patently clear to most people that it's safer to see your nan at her house than it is in a pub. and once people start to question or ignore one rule, they'll likely start to question or ignore others /16

in short, they've made it very hard for people to understand the rules, the logic behind them, and the risks. so yes, people broke the rules. but not (for the most part) because they are 'selfish' or 'reckless'. they broke the rules because the government made it inevitable /17

it might seem absurd to suggest the government would make it so people broke the rules. that seems counter-intuitive. and it is. except the government can use people breaking the rules to their advantage: they can blame the public for their own mishandling of the pandemic /18

the government has made this pandemic far worse than it needed to be. we know that because we can look to many other countries, and see that they are handling it far better with fewer or equal resources. and (of course) the government doesn't want people to blame them /19

so what do they do? they blame the public. and the trump card they have is that the public have broken the rules. it doesn't matter that they created a situation where it was almost impossible not to. they tap into our frustration, and get us to direct it towards one another /20

when we blame one another for the pandemic, we play right into their game. when we complain about other people breaking the rules, or blame the public, we help to shift the blame away from the government (who are responsible) and onto other people (who are not) /21

it's normal to feel frustrated or angry. we know didn't have to be like this. but the public aren't to blame: the government is. and when we attack one another, we let them get away with their responsibility for making this pandemic far more destructive than it needed to be. /end