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Covid is Like the Suez Canal

Month: March 2021

Covid is Like the Suez Canal

Posted on by Public Linguist

 

This morning CNN posted a link to an ingenious interactive tool where you try to steer a ship through the Suez Canal.   


You control the rudder and the power – and keep trying not to crash into the banks and create a monstrous traffic jam!  

Needless to say, despite my NYC street parking prowess I crashed numerous times.!

IMAGINE...


One morning you wake up and public health experts have put aside their directives, pleas and shaming – and, for one brief moment, set out to create something a new way of talking to the public – something that grabs us and leads us to discover ( in the safety of our online worlds) what it might take to control a pandemic. Maybe they even think of the ship stuck in the Suez canal. 

In the CNN article, the captain of the lodged ship Yasha Gupta explains the importance of the wind in particular because these container ships are stacked so high. 

“Wind is a particularly important consideration for container ships because the stacked containers lends them a dizzying height.  “So you can imagine it’s just like a solid wall, which is faced against the wind,”  He says the wind effect is uncontrollable because the ship is in water. It’s not possible to hit the brakes in the same way you’d stop a moving car.

I’m sure, if someone asked nicely CNN ( and designer Mankarious) could reimagine communicating mask wearing, or social distancing or getting vaccines in just such a great, useable way.  

Their disclaimer works for me and could be emphasized to the user of the health info. 

Note: This is a non-scientific simplified interactive experience intended for illustrative purposes only. There are many factors that have not been accounted for, including (but not restricted to): the depth of water; proximity to the banks; interaction with passing ships; the turning circle; availability of tug boats and other weather conditions like visibility. We have also sped up the time it takes to maneuver a ship of this size. Master Mariner Andy Winbow and Captain Yash Gupta have been advisers.

Rand Paul’s MASK OFF with Fauci: the old “theater” thing again

Posted on by Public Linguist

Yesterday Rand Paul and Anthony Fauci went at it again at a Senate Hearing.  

In this corner we have Rand Paul the Ophthamologist cum virologist and mask-less champion. 

In the opposite corner, Dr Anthony Fauci Director NIH National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Disease 

       
The sparring this time was about why we are still telling people to wear a mask after vaccination.  
NOTE: (Most of what I’ve put down is paraphrase)  You can listen in  – “Dr. Fauci, Senator Rand Paul argue over masks at hearing” 



Paul: with a right cross  –  If we’ve had the injection and we have immunity, then isn’t telling people to wear a mask just THEATER . 
Where’s the proof that we have significant re-infection, hospitalization and death?  
Dr. Fauci:  left & right cross  – Well as of YET in the US we don’t have a significant variant circling around.  So we can’t know that. 
Fauci: uppercut  –  Let me just state for the record, masks are not theater.  Masks are protective and we have….(interrupted)
Paul: right cross – If you have immunity (masks) are theater….you’re wearing a mask to give comfort to others. 
Where’s your proof that people can be re- infected? There is not proof.
Paul: jab -“telling people to continue to wear masks (even 2 masks) is“Policy is based on “conjecture”.  *
*The word implies some kind of “guess work”.  Fine for an episode of NCIS, but not really for Covid public health policies (including the many changing policies we’ve seen in the last year).   The recommendation to wear a mask even after vaccination and immunity is based on the scientific evidence available at the time.  
Fauci crosses:  The studies you’re talking about (BTW, he names the precise authors of the studies), were in-vitro (in a test tube or something outside the body).  Oh and BTW the authors clearly state that they don’t know if this protection would happen in our real bodies (remember I’m paraphrasing)
  

Paul: low blow   You want people to wear masks for another couple of years.”  “You’ve been vaccinated and you parade around with two masks for show….You’re defying everything we know about immunity by telling people to wear a mask.” 
Fauci: Gloves off –  You’re not hearing what I’m saying about variants. (despite multiple Paul interruptions about nanny state and rewarding people after they’ve been vaccinated by setting them free from their masks).
Fauci then gives a short, elegant and understandable presentation of the facts as they are right now in the US.  Troubling Covid variants 117, (UK) 526, 427, 429 (CA).
Would be so good and productive if public health departments and local agencies could get out good, understandable and repeated information about Covid variants: 
  1. What is a variant?
  2. Why should we care about them?
  3. What do scientists know about the Covid variants?
  4. What does this mean for protecting myself and my family, and my community?
Wash, 
Rince, 
Repeat.

NYS Covid Vaccine Form Earns a Go-Fix-Me

Posted on by Public Linguist

I’m starting up GO FIX ME installments on this blog. 

The mission – no less than purging our land of public health communication filled with self-involved, gratuitous, gobbledygook language, that makes it difficult and often impossible for readers to understand and take action.  

(How’s that for a mission!)

Here’s my first specimen and I’m hoping in the spirit of crowd sourced good writing you’ll join in and send more fixes.  

Back story on this salvage job.

3 days ago I posted about the “high barrier” ridiculously complex and vague questions NYS was using in its survey for people to register for the Covid 19 vaccine.  

Well as of this writing the painfully tortured ( easily fixable survey ) is still alive and well. 

So I’ll take a stab at fixes and hope you can contribute ones as well. 

______________________________________
NYS DOH Original Question Exhibit 1
A Fix 
Do you have any of the following health problems/conditions?
(Or)
Has a doctor ever told you that you have one of these health problems/conditions?
(Show the list of health problems included in NYS Section 3)
.
.
.
Yes 
No
Not sure/Don’t know 
_________________________________________________________________________

NSDOH Original Question  Exhibit 2

A Fix  (not sure I even understand the original question – a little help here readers???)
Are you an essential worker that works with the public? 
Yes
No
Not Sure/ Need More Information*
*Writers would define what this category of essential workers is. 
NYSDOH Question Exhibit 3 

A Fix 
Do you live in a group setting (congregate living) for example an assisted living facility, nursing home, group home, homeless shelter, prison, or detention center?
.
Yes
No
Not Sure
 
I hope some of you will join in for these  GO FIX ME!  
Being an accidental critic is a lonely job. 

Connecticut Vaccine Portal: other states take note!

Posted on by Public Linguist

My last post sliced into the incomprehensible language and format NY State used in a key gateway form that New Yorkers had to navigate in order to register to get the Covid Vaccine. 

NYS could get some lessons in clear communication by checking out it’s own next door neighbor – Connecticut – Ct.gov.  Connecticut has written and  designed a web portal that is inviting, user-friendly –  helps a consumer feel that they can manage to:

  •  determining eligibility
  • schedule an appointment 
I use three screen shots that show how they staged the topic of eligibility, specifically when you may live in congregate housing.  (Recall NYS poses this eligibility category as a survey question and makes no effort to explain what this means. 
Who is Eligible?  


Congregate Housing 

Explaining Congregate Housing 

While the reading level of the last graphic – explaining congregate housing could be tweaked to be less complex, this portal does no less than 3 important things:
 
  1. it makes getting information about obtaining the Covid Vaccine “low-barrier” 
  2. it communicates to people that Ct cares about them, which builds trust and good will
  3. it provides and may teach the consumer new information while they accomplish their task.

Bravo!

Unequal Access to Covid Vaccine: start with NYS Form

Posted on by Public Linguist

Present Biden directed all states to make all adults eligible for COVID vaccines by May 1.  A major call to address health equity and access to the vaccine for all. 

Apparently, NYS hasn’t gotten the message.  Or at least that’s what its     COVID VACCINE FORM (still live as of 3-15-21) says to me. 

Here are 3 “bet you can’t figure this one out” questions (from the form) meant for the average person trying to get through the first hurdle of registering for a Covid Vaccine. 


“comorbidity”  – nice word you likely won’t hear outside of your medical training.

“public-facing” – again nice word if you’re a systems developer, marketing person or a silhouette artist who doesn’t have a good command of language. 

“congregate setting” – easily identified with religious gathering, and maybe group home dwellers. 


Dear NYS Covid Form writers: 

The average US adult reads at 8th grade level or lower.
If you want to help people get Covid vaccinated, this HIGH BARRIER form has got to go.  

President Biden asked us to “all do our part”. 
 NYS,  I or any number of health communication writers are ready to help you.  
 
No questions asked.

           




Does Public Health Value Our Common Sense?

Posted on by Public Linguist
By the end of this post I promise to show why these two pictures go together (sort of) 

After reading my post yesterday, a dear friend and colleague in public health communication told me he thought I came off sounding like I was tired of Public Health PH experts just repeating year-old messages – say “Wear a Mask”  “Social Distance.”  
Not so much. So I didn’t communicate good enough and I want to try again. 
 I meant that PH messages are all about rules and they never work to endorse, promote or tweak our common sense. 

Background (relevant):
I am the oldest of 5.  Characteristically well-behaved, obedient,  total by-the-book, rule-following “Goody Two Shoes”.  To hear my siblings tell it I ruled over them as the “enforcer”, and now as older adults it still can contaminate our dynamics. 

Picture 1

Me at maybe 8 or 9.  It was the age when I distinctly recall one day, after school, standing in our living room listening to my mother, in no uncertain terms, tell me I had to do my homework before I went out play. As she was carping on, some, let’s call it, “primal” voice in my head was saying, “Hey I’m a person.  She can’t talk to me like that.  I can go play and still do my homework later.”

(Dear reader – you’re probably stunned that this realization and emerging sense of self was so late in arriving, but so be it.) 

While I don’t recall how the issue was resolved, I often think of that voice.  Which, following the course of child development, grows into one’s sense of self, self efficacy, self worth….empowerment. 


2020 60+ years later Covid pandemic – I’ve been a totally by-the-book, mask-wearing, social distancing, hand washing, groceries disinfecting, citizen.  Keeping in character I sewed endless masks for neighbors and proselytizing about virus transmission and protection in my charming relentless self.   

Picture 2
But over the past month or so, walking in Central Park and around NYC each day. that self-autonomy/efficacy/worth/empowerment voice has wondered why PH doesn’t seem to recognize or care about us trying to think through and formulate ( and correct) our common sense.

For example “Wear a Mask”
    But if you’re outdoors and there’s no one in sight you can let your mask down.
     Pull it up again when people are near….


I remember months ago Dr.. Sanjay Gupta, ubiquitous during the height of the pandemic,  was being interviewed and he said something like what I’m referring to.  He said if he’s out running and no one’s around he doesn’t keep his mask on, or something like that.  ( forgive me Dr. G if I misquoted here)
This is not the 1950s and public health is promoting polio prevention. Today we are overfed with easily accessible information in all flavors– TV, social media, podcasts, talk on the street.  Google and Youtube are the primary ways we get our health information. 

What I keep looking for is public health messaging that goes beyond the by the book rules and is more real and relevant to who we are and how we live our lives. Messages that show:
• they have an inkling of us as thinking people
• they know and expect us to be trying to actively problem solve given our individual circumstances
• they can anticipate and respond to the common sense we’re inevitably trying to use. 
• by working complexity, contingency and nuance into public health messages they might, just might, win our hearts and minds. 

So that’s how the two pix relate.  
Did this make sense? 
  

Public Health Needs a New Playbook

Posted on by Public Linguist

Question 1

Given all that’s happened in the last year – over 500,000 people dead more sickened and families wounded forever, ships and soccer fields turned into hospital words, endless lines for Covid testing and vaccination chaos, Black Lives Matter, QAnon, hoaxes and conspiracy theories – how is it even possible that the very public health messages promoted at the start of the pandemic in 2020  are essentially unchanged (added the vaccine directive) now in March 2021? 

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html

CDC March 8 2021
Another example 
the NYC website – NYCDOHMH is one of the largest public health departments in the world. 
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-prevention-and-care.page

Question 2

And how is it that the ubiquitous posters we saw for SARS & H1N1 were essentially recycled for Covid19 (the classic public health hygiene message of the 20th century)
H1N1 on left  Covid Post on Right

   

How do we explain this?    
   
Lack of skill, Lack of will. Lack of imagination?  

Since we haven’t,  nor likely ever will  “close the book on infectious diseases” as US surgeon-general William Stewart proclaimed in 1969, I think it’s critical to look at what things must change in the public health communication playbook.           A year of Covid has shown me that public health officials and experts, particularly those tasked with communicating with the public, are collectively responsible for benign language disguised as information – the endless dump of scare tactics, mask and social distancing directives, persuasion through repetition and  shaming have yielded  confusion, mistrust, anger and worse.

 
It’s long overdue for public health to re-examine its old playbooks. 

Question 3 

So what should go into this new playbook?

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