With a public inquiry examining the UK Government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic due to take place in Spring 2022, there is one topic of conversation which has received far less attention than it ought: risk literacy.
Risk literacy (or rather, illiteracy) has played a far bigger role in this pandemic than many people realise. Whether it be through underestimation or overestimation of risk, many key moments since December 2019 have been affected by people’s risk illiteracy.
Arguably, risk illiteracy throughout this pandemic has been most apparent when it comes to underestimating particular threats, which have resulted in incorrect or late decisions and dire consequences. For example, in early 2020, many people (not just politicians) dismissed Covid-19 as a nasty bout of the flu.
Wahlentscheidung: Wenn Cannabis über das Kreuz entscheidet
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Wahlentscheidung: Wenn Cannabis über das Kreuz entscheidet - Politik
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No One Would Fear COVID Vaccines if Policy Makers Explained Their Risks Better
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Scientific American
Clear messaging and transparency are vital, say some experts on risk assessment and decision-making
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Unforeseen safety issues routinely emerge after any new medicine or vaccine goes from testing in tens of thousands of volunteers to actual public use on tens of millions. So it was no major surprise when an extremely small percentage of people developed a strange blood clotting problem after receiving either the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine or the AstraZeneca shot, which is widely used outside of the U.S.
Rare but dangerous side effects from vaccines can present a tricky dilemma for public health authorities. In this case, the life-threatening blood clots, accompanied by an oddly low count of clot-promoting platelets, appear to strike about two individuals per million people vaccinated with J&J’s shot and about one per 100,000 receiving AstraZeneca’s. Both are minuscule risks, compared with COVID-19 itself, which, by one estimate, k