90-Second Read: Guest commentary: Hantavirus outbreak showed challenge for public-health communication

Unlike Covid-19, Hantavirus is not a newly emerging pathogen unfamiliar to public health officials. Algorithms transformed the relatively low-risk public health Hantavirus outbreak into an immediate and dizzying stream of speculation and fear. Whether for existing or emerging outbreaks, the imperative for public health efforts is to emphasize not just communication for the sake of it but how that communication can connect emotionally with people and communities.

Yet, the conditions involving the recent Hantavirus outbreak: people aboard a cruise ship, contact tracing, and warnings about a virus capable of person-to-person transmission, sounded uncomfortably familiar. What if the most significant public-health consequence of Covid-19 was not a heightened awareness of disease, but a heightened uncertainty about whom, and what, to trust? When public health officials reassure the public that a threat remains low-risk, many people now receive that message through the uncomfortable memories of Covid-era politicized narratives and skepticism and competing social media narratives.

An unexpected byproduct of the Covid-19 pandemic was an "infodemic", a flood of information where misinformation, contradictory claims and politicized content complicates public-health communication efforts. If, as the saying goes, "quality over quantity," then the challenge facing present and future effective public health communication isn't to compete with the infodemic churned out through social media algorithms. The broader implication is that, today, trust does not simply depend on whether people have access to information.