Mixed messages, frustration with lockdowns fuel some skepticism about pandemic

Over the past few months, there have been more than 4.4million globally confirmed cases of COVID-19and more than 300,000 deaths connected to the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Yet, there are some a small minority who contest the fact that there is a deadly,infectious disease spreading around the planetor who object to global efforts to try to minimize the spread and the casualties.

Some have even taken to protesting against some of the lockdown measures.

Experts saythere are several reasons thataccount forskepticism about the pandemic, including:

• Mounting frustration as shutdowns continue;
• The breakdown of trust in government over issuessuch as changes in mask policy;
• Aresistance to being told what to do;
• Gaps in a skill psychologists callcognitive sophistication, which helps people discern what's true or false.

While some parallels can be drawn between doubts aboutthe current pandemicand the questioning of anthropogenic climate change or the efficacy of vaccinations, one large difference is that the science around the pandemic is still emerging, said Timothy Caulfied, a Canada Research Chair in health and law policy at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.

"It is different in that here, we have science that is still in flux," he said. "You have public health agencies that are trying to do their best with science that is still emerging."

And whenofficials offer differing advice, as happened when public health and government representativesinitially saidmasks didn't need to be worn by the general publicand then later suggested it might not hurt to don them in public, it could erodetrust in government, Caulfield said.

Risa Horowitz, avisual and media artist andassociate professor in visual arts at theUniversity of Regina,saidthe mixed messages are coming from all sides, not just the government.

"I have been frustrated by the mixed messaging released by official channels about the use of masks by the general publicduring the pandemic," she said. "The messaging has shifted a lot since Januaryand is still divergent across channels."

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'This is dizzying'

First, said Horowitz, the public was advised to keepN95 masks for front-line workers and only wear masks if they wereill or caring for someone who was sick.

Then the message shifted to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other public health agencies recommending cloth face coverings for everyone out in public.

Health Canada currently advises that homemade face coverings have not been proven to protect against the virus but can be an additional measure to prevent one's respiratory droplets from spreading to others.

The World Health Organizationclarifiedlast monththat medical masks should be reserved for health-care workers.

"This is dizzying, and it leads not only to frustration but also to mistrust," said Horowitz. "If the experts we rely on to inform us are not straightforward about the advice offered and the reasons why, people like me end up feeling infantilized and skeptical about all advice given."

Adding to the frustration has been the devastating impact of the economic fallout from the shutdown of businesses and institutions.Canada lost close to two million jobs in April alone and its economy is predicted to shrinkby 6.2 per cent this year.

Sorting fact from falsehoods

Caulfield, who studies misinformation and disinformation, said there istrust in science generally but thatsome people may be using the uncertainty in some aspects of the research to support their position as their frustration mounts with the coronavirusresponse.

But there's another reason why some people might believe unproventheories about the origins or spread of the virus or behave in ways that put them at risk, such as attending a protest at a time when health authorities are telling people not to congregate.

It relates to something psychologists call cognitive sophistication or the ability to think rationally about an issue, saysGordon Pennycook, a psychologist and assistant professor at the University of Regina.

"It's not a basis of intelligence,"Pennycook said of the term. "There are just some people whoare just better at figuring out what's true or false."

There are many factors that come into play when discussing cognitive sophistication: how receptive you are to information presented to you; whether or notyou question your intuition;how well you understand probabilities; and how knowledgeable you are about some of the underlying scientific principles.

"You can think about it as having a kind of mental toolbox that can be used to help discern between what's true and false in the world," said Pennycook, who wrote a 2015 paperon theability to detect falsehoods.

It's those tools thathelp make people distrustful oftheoriesthat seem to fly in the face of common sense or that have been debunked by scientists, such as the claim thatputting pepper in soup or injectingdisinfectant will stave off COVID-19.

Interpreting thenumbers

Caulfield said one of the more challenging things in the fight against misinformation is "scienceploitation," where people peddling pseudoscience use real scientific terms that can lend more credibility to advice.

"It becomes very difficult for the public to tease out what's real and what's not real when you're talking about [things like]the microbiome, and you're talking about quantum physics."

Numeracy and how people process numbers, which is not always rationally, also factors into howfacts about the pandemic are interpreted.

"We didn't evolve to immediately comprehend quantities," said Pennycook.

For example, in 2004, an earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Indonesia claimed more than 200,000 lives. It was covered worldwide and elicitedheartfelt responses and assistance from governments and people around the globe.

The global death toll fromthe pandemic has surpassed300,000butmay not hit a nerve in the same manner among those not directly impacted.

"If this was a natural disaster you would be completely distraught," Pennycook said.

Numbers also come into play in a different way, he said. For example, if there are predictions that millions of people are going to die from COVID-19 and instead it turns out to be hundreds of thousands, some people might reframe that to mean the virus is not as serious as weinitially thought when in fact it still poses a significant risk.

The vocabulary of war

Something else to consider is the language used to describe either the virus itself SARS-CoV2 or the pandemic.

"The metaphors that are being used are really violent, and they're very war-like, and they bring up the idea of threat and uncertainty," said Mehrgol Tiv, a PhD candidate in the department of psychology at McGill University in Montreal.

Terms such as "invisible enemy" or "war" against the virus canmake people uneasy, said Tiv.

"It instills a feeling of doom and dread and uneasiness, and some sense of uncertainty as well," she said. "And from the psychological perspective, when people are in situations of uncertainty and fear, there are different things that are driving their behaviours and decision-making processes."

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