I’ve touched on this before, but from the beginning of the pandemic, I’ve found it frustrating how comfortable a lot of people have been with dismissing the seriousness of COVID-19, based on its relatively high survival rate. Sure enough, the overwhelming majority of people who become infected with the coronavirus… CONTINUE
The Importance of Vaccine-Era Messaging
I argued a lot last year that the most important role the federal government had to play in managing the health crisis, aside from the behind-the-scenes work with streamlining vaccine development, was public messaging. While state governors implemented guidelines and policies (some more successfully than others), the federal government should… CONTINUE
Casting Responsibility as Fear… to Own the Coronavirus
The other day, I was looking for something on my family’s wall calendar (yes, the Dalys still use a wall calendar), and came across an old event on March 15th of this year. It was a birthday party for one of my 13-year-old daughter’s schoolmates — a party my daughter… CONTINUE
On COVID-19, Trump Knew More Than He Still Lets On
On January 28 of this year, national security adviser Robert O’Brien told President Trump, “This will be the biggest national security threat you face in your presidency.” The conversation took place during a top-secret intelligence briefing at the White House, and the threat O’Brien spoke of was the coronavirus. This… CONTINUE
The Digital Acceleration of Herd Mentality
“A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.” It’s a memorable, often quoted line from the 1997 sci-fi comedy, Men in Black, where Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) explains to his apprentice (Will Smith) why it would be a very bad idea to reveal… CONTINUE