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Good coverage of the latest messaging disaster, in a year with many. We are dramatically underselling the amazing vaccines, exaggrating the uncertainties and people trying to emphasize the good news are being drowned out, or worse. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/18/briefing/donald-trump-pardon-phil-spector-coronavirus-deaths.html
Future generations: “Wait what? They got vaccines with 95% efficacy for *any* disease and then spent the initial month of the rollout writing many articles about how it won’t change anything in the short term (rather than that point being a tiny footnote?).” Yes, yes, we did.
And then there was social media drama, unworthy of middle school in its stupidity and viciousness, when people tried to highlight the positives, and tons of people who knew better wouldn’t speak out because.. they’re afraid of drama? Yes, yes.
Everytime I make these basic points, I get many people with the right credentials telling me to shut up and stay in my lane *and* tons of people also with right credentials quietly messaging me that of course this is true, but the drama... Well folks, speak up. It’s a pandemic.
A day later, the responses to this (really overdue, since this has been a problem since December) article have ranged from some smarter, thoughtful folks thinking, oh, wait, let’s adjust messaging to “how dare an outsider write this! This is undermining public health!” Really.
I’m not sure how this isn’t more obvious, but wagon-circling leads to groupthink (as we saw with many public health/expert folks and masks early on) and pointing out failings is NOT what leads to loss of confidence in experts, it’s the opposite. It’s the wagon circling.
Being wrong is okay, even if it is due to groupthink. Groupthink is common among expert communities, to be honest. Constant danger to all. Being tired is human and understandable. (We all are). Adjusting messaging is excellent. Wagon-circling? No, no, no. That’s how things fail.
