“This is pre-eminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from
honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will
prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless,
unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
So spoke Franklin Roosevelt when giving his first Inaugural address to the American people in March 1933. He was, of
course, speaking about the Great Depression which had wracked his country and the world since the great share market
crash of October 1929, but his words are just as apposite today as the world confronts the Covid-19 pandemic.
Governments, businesses, health professionals and citizens everywhere are reeling as each new revelation about Covid-19
occurs, or as the daily explosion in the numbers of cases around the world is announced. While all these agencies are
genuinely doing their best to respond appropriately, none of them really knows what the duration of the virus will be,
how severe it will get, or what the long-term consequences will be for world economies and social cohesion. Suddenly,
those television series popular in the 1970s and 1980s about small groups of survivors from either a nuclear holocaust
or a global pandemic trying to re-establish social order and functional communities do not seem that fictional anymore.
This is just the type of environment where the best endeavours of governments and civil authorities can be easily and
quickly derailed by rumour, gossip, idle speculation and ignorance that unchecked gives rise to the “nameless,
unreasoning, unjustified terror” that Roosevelt was so keen to quell. While governments can act responsibly to stimulate
their economies to keep as many of their citizens as possible employed and businesses afloat, to lay the ground work for
recovery, and while they can endeavour to ensure the best possible medical services are available, it is almost
impossible for them to manage the spread of public opinion. That is a virus of itself.
Private views about what is happening, formed on whatever basis, pass the same way as the virus from one person to the
next, to form a community perspective. Any suggestion that access to medical care is not being offered even-handedly, or
that some groups in society are missing out, or that people are not being told the full story can multiply rapidly and
become ultimately unqualified fact in the eyes of at least some sections of the community. At that point, the fear
Roosevelt referred to sets in, and breeds envy, hatred and division, which, now unlike then, will be fomented and spread
by social media, as we have seen in other areas.
But governments cannot manage all this by themselves. In fact, stentorian government messages on how people should
behave are likely to have precisely the opposite effect. Even in a crisis, people do not like being told what to do, but
they will respond positively to what they think were all their own ideas, or at least the suggestions of those around
them. Peer pressure to conform remains the most powerful incentive of all. Public messaging from governments and health
authorities needs therefore to be simple, consistent, positive and repetitive, as not everyone will be hearing them at
the same time, or as often.
The messaging also needs to be co-ordinated and evidence based. The news media has a huge role to play, focusing on the
information people need to have to be able to go about their daily lives securely and confidently, rather than the
latest angle on the ongoing situation. In this environment, the drama of the event must give way to the wellbeing of the
citizen, and the protection of public calm.
The Prime Minister struck the right tone when she told Parliament “Be strong, be kind, we will be ok”. But that message
cannot be left as just a one-off, a catchy line at the end of a speech in the House. It has to become almost a new
mantra, for the government, business, the health sector and the community as a whole, to be constantly repeated and
upheld. That way, assuming the maintenance of consistent and co-ordinated policy responses, we will overcome fear,
prejudice and ignorance.
We will “revive and prosper”.