The Irish Times view on coronavirus outbreak: Government’s undue caution

In the age of social media, information spreads like the most contagious of diseases. The uncontrolled, uncontrollable technology, with its plethora of outlets and platforms, has the capacity as efficiently to disseminate myths and truths and to spread fear and hysteria.

Any public health communications strategy, specifically one responding to an epidemic, must start from the clear understanding that we are in a new age. However worthwhile the idea of protecting a school from the glare of publicity, information policy must be based on the assumption that it will be named within minutes. Not to mention any number of false positives.

Mitigation of damage is the only viable strategy, by providing complete transparency on a platform or site whose credentials are impeccable. Rumour and falsehoods will only thrive in an information vacuum or a context where Government is suspected of concealing or lying.

The argument, however, that naming individuals is likely to discourage reporting is important and different. It’s not just about privacy, which can arguably be trumped by a public interest right-to-know case, but a pragmatic appreciation of human psychology. How will people act, not how should they act. The question is what approach – complete transparency or individual protection – will better facilitate containment? The HSE would appear to have that balance right.

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The issue also arises in relation to paid leave. The Workplace Relations Commission has warned those who take time off for self-isolation do not necessarily have the right to sick pay. This depends on their contracts of work, particularly when they do not prove to be sick. That reality, particularly for the low-paid surviving from pay cheque to pay cheque, is a powerful disincentive to reporting, and evidence shows can contribute to the spread of disease.

Empirical research in the US shows that in states which require mandatory sick leave the adoption of such laws reduced cases of influenza-like disease by 11 per cent in their first year. And a 2013 Pennsylvania study estimated that allowing workers to take up to two paid “flu days” would have reduced workplace transmission of the flu by roughly 39 per cent.

A communications strategy is also about explaining and preparing the public for measures that may yet have to be taken, but in such a way as not to rush fences or stoke unnecessary public concern. That is a legitimate and proper approach but may also lead to undue caution. It is difficult to see, for example, how in the course of the next couple of weeks the spread of coronavirus will have sufficiently stabilised and the threat receded to the point that the St Patrick’s Day parades will no longer represent a huge potential source of transmission. The response seems inevitable and better sooner than later.