We may look back and wonder if social contagion was more of a threat than epidemic contagion. Social media is awash with bots and trolls, while clever data analytic campaigns behind the scenes manipulate the emotional temperature. And on social media, news travels fast. The study Bad news has wings: dread risk mediates social amplification in risk communication2 examined how bad news stories can turn into mass hysteria when passed from person to person through social media channels. Stories became more negative and tended towards fear and panic as they passed through a message chain.
Think back to those first Chinese videos of ‘Stunt Covid’ which were viewed many millions of times. Rapid mainstream media coverage ensued, fanning the flames of fear. Social media was the perfect terrain of dry tinder to exaggerate fears. Ideally, mainstream media would dispassionately report and also vigorously fact-check and verify sources, but that didn’t always happen. Chapter 2, ‘Fear spreads in the media like an airborne virus’, looked at the various ways in which the media was complicit in leveraging fear, not least in compensating journalists who generate the most clicks. Finally, at this stage, the fire raging, do you want your government to attend to the flames with bellows or a fire hose?
Recent governments have presided over and benefited from evolving behavioural science, data analytics and propaganda techniques. Dominic Cummings, the political strategist and former chief advisor to Boris Johnson, has been open about the role of data science in the Leave campaign. At the Ogilvy ‘Nudgestock Conference’ in 2017, he said: ‘The future will be about experimental psychology, and data science. The reality is that most communications companies are populated by bullshitting charlatans, and most of them should be fired. Silicon Valley will take over this industry in the same way they’ve taken over other industries.’3
The current government has become expert in ‘blowing us about by our passions’. One of the memorable Vote Leave videos was made by agency Topham Guerin, and featured Boris Johnson starring in a pastiche of a Love Actually scene. It was amusing but insubstantial puff. If the country votes for leaders based on that level of messaging, it’s no surprise we are still being blown about by the same puff. From social media shtick to sophisticated data analytics, we are being manipulated in increasingly effective ways.
There is obviously a need for a robust, honest public inquiry into the management of the Covid-19 epidemic. As a result of my investigations I offer suggestions for some calls to action in the sections below. This book’s most important clarion call is for a specific inquiry into the use of behavioural science by government.
How we make sure this never happens again:
1. EVIDENCE-BASED PANDEMIC PLANNING AND PREPAREDNESS
It’s worth repeating the following quote from the anonymous scientific advisor deeply embedded in Whitehall. They told me they warned government that there would be severe consequences for excess deaths if the country locked down. ‘Lockdown was not the way to go,’ they said. ‘Bluntly, you should try and power through an epidemic. Lockdown was obviously going to tank the economy. We have never trained for a lockdown like this. You don’t do it for a coronavirus. I’ve been through all my papers. It’s just not something we do.’
But we did do it. Strangely, the narrative in the media and from politicians drifts further towards the idea that we should have locked down earlier and harder. It is still too early to proffer the absolute judgement on excess mortality and the costs and benefits of pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions. A robust and honest inquiry must do this.
Lucy Easthope told me that the UK’s response has been ‘what I would expect to see for a much worse disease. There are no secret plans for a more serious disease like Ebola. People don’t know what has been lost for a coronavirus. There wouldn’t be a greater loss of liberty for any other disease. This was a massive over-reaction. One of the main problems is we don’t have enough critical care beds for an epidemic. We didn’t have the PPE. And the government tore up the pandemic plans.’
Why didn’t the UK follow the existing evidence-based and rehearsed protocols? Chapter 2, ‘Fear spreads in the media like an airborne virus’, offered explanations about the pressures which came from social media, and possible bad state actors operating through social media, as well as the traditional press and broadcast media. Chapter 4, ‘Fear is a page of the government playbook’, looked at how governments use fear to (not necessarily deliberately) ratchet in size and to advance other interests. And I also explored the political bias and motivations of various advisory panels and the ‘psychocrats’ who have assumed so much power in the decision-making. But there is another more prosaic reason.
Robert Dingwall told me that ‘the infrastructures for pandemic planning had been disbanded and the people involved had dispersed. The Department for Health was never supposed to have the role it has taken on. The Cabinet Office for Civil Emergencies Unit should have led across government.’ He explained that plans and documentation are simply not always handed over from one generation of
