Andrea Scoseria Katz, Lies in the Time of Corona: Attempts to Inoculate Truth from a Pandemic, Int’l J. Const. L. Blog, Apr. 29, 2020

This makes sense but how do you accomplish that in today's milieu?

نعم

Translation of نعم from Zamiel Salih, according to Google translate:

yes.

Although the disease is directly responsible for much pandemic damage, a significant amount of the damage is due to indirect effects of the disease being prevalent in a community or country. A significant amount of pandemic damage comes from the economic effects on many due to some having disease. Consider that, even without a government order, many businesses and schools have to close when a significant number of their workers develop the illness. Also consider that when government orders for "shelter-in-place" or "lockdown" lead to isolation of uninfected persons who live alone and have been associated with significant mental health effects. And, consider that when an epidemic is as lethal as COVID-19 has been, there is a significant effect on those who lose one or more loved ones.

Then there are the lies: All one has to do is look at how poorly the United States has handled the COVID-19 pandemic to see the effect of lies beginning with President Trump and his loyal followers. In word and deed (such as not wearing masks), they have without question made the effects of the COVID-19 worse. There have been lies about the extent of the disease and lies about how it could be treated. These lies, propagated in places such as Trump's rallies and group events, have been associated with spread of the disease, even though that is a hard thing to measure. I'm attaching a newspaper report attributing at least 700 coronavirus deaths to Trump rallies.

Yes..

نعم...

Zahraa Al Kaabi's reply:

Google translation of نعم... Yeah.

If governments can lie on a road project, which is seen, what will prevent them from lying on tests. That is what I call political dishonesty. We should be giving the exact figures though expensive as cheating is more expensive.

In: Karin Moelling. (2017) Viruses: More Friends Than Foes (p. 34).

From the book: The fear of measles vaccination teaches us a lesson — vaccination is based on trust and education and correct information.

A very considered view from Stephen Schoenbaum. I would not venture to give my views on the USA political situation but in UK we have a pale imitation of your past president in our Prime Minister, who continually displays incompetence and inability to master facts (and appears to be proud of it). He is therefore at the mercy of those around him and their vested interests. Our "world-beating" test and trace system, headed by the CEO of a social media company, hads been exposed repeatedly as sham, and in fact leads to needless harm to low-income families (yes, there are a lot of those in UK) who either have to stay away from work (often unpaid) or their children have to stay away from school (so parents have to stay at home to care for them) etc etc. Politicians who give well-considered, clear leadership and lead by example are needed in a pandemic situation.

We share common disturbing facts here that politicizing and profiteering science, health, morals, ethics and lifestyles has become a source of power and profits by both the political machines and the corporate media machines globally.

My ResearchGate colleagues and I seem to lack ownership that many of us are like jurists in that we live in our own bubbles with our biases and intellectual adroitness expecting to be blindly and faithfully understood and accepted as leaders in societies decisions.

Demanding acculturation and change from the opposition without planting our own seeds of acculturation and change helps explain our unjustified frustration, anger and lack of success.

Covid has done many things but for me, it has exposed the wedge that hunkering fuels between the different elements of society on all levels at a revolutionary pace. I have a new quote: "You don't manage the truth or the facts, you simply and only tell them". This is where we all need to be smacked in the face by a 2X4 !!

I agree with this, main problem is that, govt is also facing this pandemic 1st time. No previous or full proof strategy is available. Human has learn a lot during this pandemic.

As a self proclaimed biomedical engineer of the lower extremity, here is my template for conducting stochastic research that will , IMHO, provide better, more valid and more applicable qualitative answers when applied to Covid 19 and so many other important categories:

Article The Case for Researching Biomechanics and Human Movement Usi...

Lies can cause more people to get the disease, feeding into the damage that is caused by Covid.

Government lies create a culture of distrust. See:

The Economist, Nov 13th edition

Article: The arc of susceptibility Eastern European countries are being hit by a wave of covid deaths But only where vaccination rates are poor

From the article: Low vaccination rates are not the result of a lack of vaccines. The countries of the arc have ample supply, but also loud anti-vaxxers. Distrust of government and medical staff is high.

STAT magazine.

https://www.statnews.com/2021/11/18/flint-water-science-trust-covid19/

Lessons from a Flint water crisis researcher about building trust in science during the pandemic By Justin Chen Nov. 18, 2021

From the article: Because public health agencies had falsely claimed that the water was safe at the onset of the crisis, any new data from the government showing progress was greeted by locals with skepticism.

Lies can lead to either fear or overconfidence which can both lead to more spread.

When the basic values and tenets of living together as a community or a nation are not sacred, Autocracy and Oligarchy are the result.

How do we wake up the sheep before the shepherds sell them under a bus?

The Economist: Nov 27th 2021 edition Picking their shots Should Africa make covid-19 vaccination a priority? Other public-health problems are crying out for attention

From the article: Low trust in government, a chronic state of affairs across Africa, is part of the problem. Fewer than half of respondents in the Afrobarometer surveys said they trusted their government to ensure vaccines were safe.

I believe so. Lies from the government do harm in many areas.

This quote is from the third last paragraph of:

Emanuel EJ, Osterholm M, Gounder CR. A National Strategy for the “New Normal” of Life With COVID. JAMA. Published online January 06, 2022. doi:10.1001/jama.2021.24282

"... it is essential to rebuild trust in public health institutions and a belief in collective action in service of public health. Communities with higher levels of trust and reciprocity, such as Denmark, have experienced lower rates of hospitalization and death from COVID-19."

Our leaders and The Corporate Sector know that:

1. Covid will become endemic

2. New challenging diseases, climate nightmares, economic turmoil, etc will develop and exist in the future

3. The distance between the haves and the have-nots will continue to grow

The way to build trust in public health is to:

1. Confront obesity as we did nicotine

2. Confront malnourished societies

3. Get the public to be more active (teach fundamental biomechanics and resistance training science and evidence)

4. Be honest with the public

5. Reduce political and corporate greed

6. Repair and/or create infrastructure for the masses

7. Take better care of the herd or cull it.

8. ???

9. ???

10.???

The following quote is in relation to weather and climate induced disasters, but applies to pandemics too.

From: Raju, E., Boyd, E. & Otto, F. Stop blaming the climate for disasters. Commun Earth Environ 3, 1 (2022) Article Stop blaming the climate for disasters

From the abstract: "Natural hazards such as floods, droughts and heatwaves become disasters as a result of societal vulnerability, that is, a propensity of people, societies and ecosystems to be harmed."

It is a decision based on many factors, fear may guide population to a lot fof stressful situations. sometimes, Government needs to lie to reduce pandemic bad circumstances

@Amir Beltagi, that is totally correct, as it is correct that lies originating from governmental authorities can result in a lot of harms, as @Chuck A Arize stated.

But, I think that the attitude of the government is not the only crucial aspect, because there are citizens as well and they need to decide whether they will believe something they hear from the government officials or not. That public trust certainly cannot originate from the pandemic itself, but after a much longer period of time and must be built on the basis of a wider spectrum of situations and not just during public health emergencies.

Also, I think that the lack of public trust is fueling governments to lie even more which further deteriorates public trust resulting in a vicious circle.

There are a lot of articles discussing public trust during COVID-19, and one of them is ours published in 2020 showing that, among all participants in Serbia, the lack of trust in healthcare system and preventive measures imposed by the crisis team is more noticeable among healthcare workers which was an alarming finding.

You can find the article at the following link:

Article Public trust and media influence on anxiety and depression l...

From: Colin Kahl & Wright, Thomas J. . (2021) Aftershocks (p. 176). St. Martin's Publishing Group, page 176, about the Covi-19 pandemic:

In countries where leaders were not trusted or where they abused that trust, the outcomes were worse.

From:

Al Knawy B, McKillop MM, Abduljawad J, et al. Successfully Implementing Digital Health to Ensure Future Global Health Security During Pandemics: A Consensus Statement. JAMA Netw Open. 2022;5(2):e220214. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.0214

"an important aspect of building trust is to ensure a clear separation between science and policy (ie, let data be data and leave policy making to policy makers".

"lack of public trust may decrease compliance with public health advice or recommendations, adversely impacting health outcomes."

Sweden's coronavirus commission report of February 25, 2022.

Website: https://coronakommissionen.com/

From the English summary, at page 22:

Communication with the general public is fundamental to all crisis management and must be improved for next time. It is important in maintaining trust and confidence and hence in promoting resilience and endurance. To work in that way, communication has to be honest, factually correct, as complete as possible, and at the same time easy to understand.

From: McKinsey & Company, Ten Lessons from the first two years of COVID- 19.March 2022. by Matt Craven, Mark Staples, and Matt Wilson

#4. Trust is one of the most delicate but critical requirements for an effective pandemic response

December 2022 edition of Scientific American includes the article: COVID Communication Often Failed.

How Health Policy Makers Can Do Better Health policy makers need to cultivate social trust and plan effective communication strategies well before the next pandemic

The article begins:

In February 2020, global health authorities spoke in one voice, advising the public not to wear masks to prevent infection.

"Seriously people—STOP BUYING MASKS!", tweeted the then US surgeon general Jerome Adams, stressing that masks would not protect the general public from the virus. The World Health Organization (WHO) similarly advised that masks should only be used by health-care workers or people with a cough or fever.

But the message was soon reversed. Scientists knew that masks helped to prevent airborne viral infections; the early mask guidance was mainly geared towards preserving supplies for health workers. Once people realized that the authorities had not acted in their best interest, resentment began to smoulder.

Or may we say: COVID Communication Often Failed = COVID Communication often employed terminological inexactitudes.

I have difficulty understanding this discussion and why it is continuing. The initial question, “Do government lies cause more pandemic damage than the disease?” isn’t logical. It is the disease that causes the damage whether the government tells the truth or not. But governments, if they know something to be true but, when questioned about the issue, give false information; or they can withhold information they have and just refuse to say something, or they can decide not to pursue the issue. Any of these can potentially make a current pandemic worse, I.e., the disease will lead to more cases and deaths than would occur had the government acted responsibly. It also is possible that any of these, particularly not pursuing an important issue, can enhance the probability of a next pandemic. For example, the government of China has apparently thwarted efforts to understand the origin of SARS-CoV2 in humans. Was it market(s) in Wuhan, possibly a lab accident, or both? This has policy implications. Markets that sell live wild animals apparently continue to exist in parts of the world. To the extent that they are a likely source of epidemics and pandemics such as Covid-19, responsible governments should be regulating them. And high level laboratories that handle dangerous pathogens or do experiments that might create pathogens may also need more stringent procedures or greater restrictions on the types of experimentation they do. One does not want to stifle good commerce or important research. We’re China to have allowed detailed understanding of the origin of SARS-CoV-2, there would have been a chance of making the world safer For the future.

Stephen C Schoenbaum

Perhaps the discussion point could have been better worded.

Not that government causes damage but rather that government lies have the potential to worsen outcomes.

Your remark is on point:

Any of these can potentially make a current pandemic worse, I.e., the disease will lead to more cases and deaths than would occur had the government acted responsibly.

And you make several other good points.

Public policy should aim for epidemic management that avoids the danger you identify. That seems to be a point that the December 2022 Scientific American article How Health Policy Makers Can Do Better is making.