On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 2:57 PM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/02/world/africa/ebola-spreading-in-west-africa.html > There was this relevant detail in an NYT story about the man with Ebola who flew into Dallas: Officials said Wednesday that they believed Mr. Duncan came into contact > with 12 to 18 people when he was experiencing active symptoms and when the > disease was contagious, and that the daily monitoring of those people had > not yet shown them to be infected. I get that public health experts don't want to cause a panic by leaving room for doubt on the handling of the situation. But I think they've gone a little too far in the opposite direction and have given assurances in the face of something that brings some unknowns with it. Expressions of confidence when people can sense this is something that is kind of new can have the effect of undermining rather than bolstering trust in the handling of the situation. Such overconfidence seems to be common before financial crises, for example, and people are attuned to this dynamic. Eric
