įurthermore, some platforms are acknowledging their growing responsibility in media consumption and have introduced specific features to increase users’ awareness and levels of information.
For example, approximately 60% of adults in the United States consulted web-based sources to gather health information. This is particularly relevant for health issues.
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As such, they are fundamental drivers of people’s perception and opinions and thus of their behaviors. Together with traditional news media, these platforms and websites are the principal sources of information for the public. Currently, these platforms and websites are far more popular and integral parts of society, and they are instrumental sources of national and international news circulation. Newspapers and television were still very important sources of information however, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Wikipedia started to become relevant for decentralized news consumption, boosting of peer discussions, and spreading of misinformation. In 2009, we witnessed the first pandemic in the social media era. In 1918, news circulated slowly via newspapers, controlled by editorial choices of course, news also spread by word of mouth. History repeats itself however, the context is often radically different. As in 1918, countries that reacted earlier rather than later were better able to control the virus, with significantly fewer infections. These surveys report that citizens of several European countries, despite the grim news coming from Asia, were overly optimistic about the health emergency, placing their risk of infection at 1% or less.
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A series of surveys conducted in late February provide a glimpse of the possible effects of these approaches. This initial phase aimed at conveying low local risk and boosting confidence in national safety was repeated, at different times, across countries. However, the Mayor of London, 12 days before the national lockdown and a few days after the extension of the cordon sanitaire to the entire country in Italy, affirmed via his official Facebook page that “we should carry on doing what we’ve been doing.” More generally, in several western countries, news reports from other countries reporting concerning epidemic outbreaks were not considered to be relevant to the local situation. In fact, the country was one of the first to experience rapid growth of hospitalization. In hindsight, of course, it is easy to criticize the initial response in Italy.
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For example, the hashtag # MilanoNonSiFerma (“Milan does not stop”) was coined to invite citizens in Milan to go out and live normally, while free aperitifs were offered in Venice. As in 1918, many national and regional governments organized campaigns aimed at encouraging social activities (and thus local economies) while actively attempting to convince people that their cities were safe and that the spread of the disease was isolated in faraway locations.
As happened in 1918, despite early evidence from China, the virus was first equated by many people with common seasonal influenza. History repeats itself, and humanity appears to not be able to learn from its past mistakes. The effectiveness of these measures is linked to risk and susceptibility perception thus, the information to which citizens are exposed is of fundamental importance. While these measures have been enforced to different extents across nations, they all rely on compliance. Social distancing has become paramount, gatherings have been cancelled, and mobility within and across countries has been dramatically reduced. In fact, as SARS-CoV-2 spreads worldwide and a vaccine may still be far in the future, the most important weapons to reduce the burden of the disease are nonpharmaceutical interventions. The cause is not a novel strain of influenza however, unfortunately, Barry’s words are still extremely relevant. In his essay, Barry summarized the mishandling of the deadly 1918 Spanish influenza, highlighting the importance of precise, effective, and honest information at the onset of health crises.Įleven years later, the world is facing another pandemic. This evocative sentence was written in May 2009 by John M Barry in the early phases of what would soon become the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. The second most important will be communication. In the next influenza pandemic, be it now or in the future, be the virus mild or virulent, the single most important weapon against the disease will be a vaccine.
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