SHIFT IN PERSPECTIVE IS NEEDED FOR COVID-19
Fear and foreboding ineffective way to get people to co-operate, Calvin White writes.
Once a province or country has set itself on a course, it becomes very difficult to alter it. But necessity sometimes can work wonders.
Such is the case with the direction taken with COVID-19, not only here in Canada and B.C., but around the world, with few exceptions. From the onset, fear has dictated public policy and, infinitely more importantly, in what was overwhelmingly communicated to the public. When we shut everything down in a dramatic and unprecedented way, it was akin to a nuclear explosion. The message of immense threat plunged us into a fear mentality that now has put us into dangerous levels of confusion, doubt, and distrust. This is especially perilous because we will soon be moving into flu season and a likely rise in COVID-19 infection.
When people have been so effectively bathed in fear both by messaging and daily, frightened news inundation and then lived with enforced, wide-scale behavioural changes, it is extremely difficult to undo the effects and now tell everyone not to be afraid. One focal point of this is playing out with our schools. Around the world, they were shut down for months out of fear. Now they are being opened, and parents, kids, and teachers are being told not to be afraid, although nothing has really changed. The world desperately races for a vaccine, but at the same time we are constantly told that it may not be fully effective, and even may include problematic side-effects if not fully and longitudinally tested. More doubt and fear.
Basic to all of this is that COVID-19 is not Ebola. It is not the deadly plague that our collective panic and consequent massive societal changes would befit.
Of course, it is a terrible disease, and it is highly contagious. There have always been terrible ailments that can befall any of us. The common cold is highly infectious. The World Health Organization says between 290,000 and 650,000 people in the world die due to the flu each year. People can read and listen to the news. That’s the global problem now when the official communication from leadership, experts, and government evokes cognitive dissonance with competing communication that the public can glean on their own.
From early on it was apparent that COVID-19 was scything its way both in contagion and especially in lethality through the care home population and the elderly in general. It was also a grave threat to those with underlying serious health issues. And while it could be unpredictable in also seriously harming and even killing healthy people, the clear threat of that was not so radically different from other threats. Everyone knows that young people and healthy people die every year from road accidents, but no one stops driving. We know that cancer can take any of us regardless of our good health or age, and though we may fear it, we do not live our lives governed by that fear.
Thus, it is not surprising that so many now flaunt the strictures to social distance or maintain social bubbles. It is not surprising that conspiracy theories abound. It is not surprising that mental illness from too much fear and too many disruptive conditions has risen. It is not surprising that so many resign themselves to fate. It is not surprising that anti-vaxxing beliefs continue to vex our societal well-being. It is also not surprising that parents, kids, and teachers fearfully balk at returning to school.
All of this is connected to too much fear and fear-based decision-making. It may be possible that our leadership can still try to reset the direction and reset the mindset that we have created.
In a multi-drug-resistant TB epidemic, I worked as a mental health specialist for a year. The medical direction was to push infected people to go on a demanding medical treatment that caused harsh side-effects but would hopefully save their lives. The authorities focused only on delivering the treatment and expecting compliance. When large numbers defaulted due to side-effects which thus allowed the epidemic to spread, the authorities yelled and berated those who stopped treatment. Of course this had no effect because it was simply tuned out. Patients chose to take their chances and accepted that it could lead to death.
What my team decided was rather than emphasize fear, we would emphasize service. Take the medication and stay on the medication, stay in hospital until no longer infectious, not simply for yourself but to save your families and your communities. We reframed the focus and asked them to be warriors fighting for something and we treated them with that kind of respect.
This shift in perspective is needed now with COVID-19. So many young adults may realize they have little to worry about if they get COVID-19. Look at the non-issue in terms of dire outcomes with professional athletes: they get it, get over it and resume their sport. No big deal. So, continually telling young people how dangerous the virus is, how they can die, and berating them for reckless behaviour is a non-starter. It evokes resistance because young people can size up their risks, as they always do, and pedal to the metal. As well, they resent being told what to do, resent being lectured.
But our young also are prone to wanting to make a difference. They so often are ready to join a cause for good when they see the good. The best communication to reach the young, as well as the conspiracy sector and the denier sector, is to fully focus on the deaths of the elderly, the pain to their families, and highlight every human-interest truth surrounding those tragedies. Then ask those resisters to put aside their personal convictions and pitch in to protect the elderly. Wear masks to protect the elderly. Protect yourselves not because you fear but because you want to protect the elderly.
Change the narrative to, we are all on the same team in doing good for those at risk. A devil-maycare individual may keep their personal attitude, but they can alter behaviour out of respect and consideration for others. We need to stop being driven by fear and foreboding, stop highlighting all the specific pitfalls and latest specific dire findings about the virus, and instead exhort our citizens to join in the challenge facing us. We need to ask everyone to champion the wearing of masks, to lead with their friends in clean hands, elbow bumps and conscious distancing. We are a caring society and it always shows itself in so many random acts of kindness. We need to evoke that kindness now.
When people have been so effectively bathed in fear both by messaging and daily, frightened news inundation and then lived with enforced, wide-scale behavioural changes, it is extremely difficult to undo the effects. Calvin White