Philip Cu Unjieng
SM Prime Holdings and the National Resilience Council were the major supporters of an Epidemiology for Communicators webinar conducted late last week. Led by resource speaker Dr. John Q. Wong, the EpiMetrics epidemiologist, the idea was to have Dr. Wong interact with Filipino journalists, information officers, content creators, and media practitioners on how to effectively and reliably tell the story of the COVID-19 pandemic here in the Philippines.
One might think this comes late in the game, with the pandemic having been around already for a year; but if you think about the situation we’re still in, with confusion and uncertainty still reigning supreme, one can appreciate how timely this webinar actually is. Mind you, epidemiology looks at the forest, and not the trees; its goal is not to save one person, but a whole population. It’s about taking hard medical and scientific facts, creating verifiable public information, and engendering public trust; while combatting fake news.