Lester Freamon said:
Why is the CDC scenario analysis not front page news everywhere? Even the high end estimates are an order of magnitude off the original beliefs about disease severity.
Unlike many, I don't think the biggest driver is politics. Hopefully staff will allow some apolitical opinions on the subject:
As to the average citizen, it's largely a product of denial brought about in significant part by what psychologists would call cultural cognition. Basically, faced with what initially appeared to be an existential threat, people adopted a view of the virus and how we should treat it that became entrenched. Now, people follow the opinion leaders who affirm that entrenched view despite the mounting evidence to the contrary. The real trick is that the people who are ignoring the evidence have convinced themselves that they are the people who are following the science and facts. In the social media age, far too many people only consume media which confirms their existing bias, which makes changing entrenched viewpoints a slower and more difficult process.
As to the media which so heavily influences opinions directly and indirectly, there are a few apolitical forces at play. The first is the fact that negativity sells, it makes for more compelling stories (much harder to ignore the report of a threat than it is to ignore good news, that's just basic psychology as we are wired to be attuned to potential threats) and drives ratings. The second is that the media has long ago abdicated its position as the cynical watchdogs of public policy. The modern media is frankly quite lazy, which has led to a tendency to just report along with the crowd instead of looking at the facts and letting that determine the reporting. The third is the unfortunate circumstance of the hottest spot for the Worldwide COVID19 outbreak occurring in the world's media capital, NYC. The media doesn't have perspective because they are in the center of the storm.
Changing views and the narrative, which is probably what it will take for widespread policy and societal changes, is going to take time. It's moving, but far too slow for my liking. We are weeks or months behind the science and data right now. We still somehow have media types and policy-making figures worried about protecting children from this.
It's nonsensical, but I do hope we will see that kind of thinking change over the next month or so. My fear is that some of the inevitable isolated upticks in infections and deaths as we open things up some will give fuel to the irrational fears and influence policy in the wrong direction again.
