After COVID, US risks repeating communication failures as new outbreaks hit

As a hantavirus outbreak linked to a cruise ship appears to be receding and Ebola cases continue to mount in Africa, science journalist Lynne Peeples writes in The Guardian that the United States has not learned the risk-communication lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic and is repeating the same mistakes with new outbreaks.

Peeples, author of the book The Inner Clock: Living in Sync with Our Circadian Rhythms, argued that despite the proliferation of dashboards, trackers, maps, and real-time data during the current outbreaks, “many people are left asking the same questions: what can I trust? How bad is this, really? What should I do?”

“Data doesn’t speak for itself,” she wrote.

The COVID-19 pandemic, Peeples wrote, turned millions of people into direct consumers of data dashboards, statistical models, and risk calculations. The Johns Hopkins dashboard alone received billions of data requests a day, she noted. At the same time, social media became “a machine for stripping numbers of context and recirculating them as certainty.”

“As those channels have eroded, people have grown more reliant on rapid, context-thin streams of information on social media feeds and AI-generated summaries,” Peeples wrote. “Social media rewards certainty, not the nuance of relative versus absolute risk or the transmission dynamics of a virus.”

Peeples pointed to deep cuts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Institutes of Health, as well as the dismantling of USAID and the US withdrawal from the World Health Organization, as factors that have undermined disease surveillance and response systems. She wrote that the parallel erosion of communication capacity within those agencies and the decline of local newsrooms — the US newspaper industry has lost more than three-quarters of its jobs in the past two decades — has left a vacuum.

Researchers have put the odds at greater than one in five for another pandemic killing at least 25 million people within the next decade, Peeples reported.

MSI previously reported that US measles cases have topped 2,000 as the outbreak approaches its worst in decades, a situation Peeples wrote is worsened by gaps in communication and trust.

“Measles is a case in point. We have a highly effective vaccine and decades of knowledge about transmission. Yet outbreaks continue because communication and trust determine whether people act on that knowledge,” she wrote. “As the US hosts millions of visitors for the 2026 World Cup, amid persistent measles outbreaks around the world, that gap becomes more dangerous.”

Peeples traced examples of misleading risk communication during the current outbreaks. Commonly cited hantavirus death rates of 30% to 40% may overstate the true risk, she wrote, because milder infections may go undiagnosed and shrink the denominator. She also noted that when a CDC official in May described a US cruise passenger as testing “mildly” positive for hantavirus, the phrase muddled the distinction between test result and disease severity, drawing a Facebook comment that asked: “Is mildly positive like saying kinda pregnant?”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Peeples wrote, inconsistent messaging undermined trust. She noted that in February 2020, the US surgeon general tweeted: “Seriously people – STOP BUYING MASKS!” — stating they were not effective for the public — before the CDC recommended face coverings two months later.

“Inconsistency can look like incompetence, and it can invite distrust,” she wrote.

Peeples pointed to a radio station in the Democratic Republic of Congo that has dedicated daily programming to answering questions and correcting rumors about Ebola as an example of meeting people where they are. She also cited a study finding that short videos by doctors and nurses ahead of winter holidays reduced travel and subsequent COVID infections.

“There’s no returning to the old media landscape,” Peeples wrote. “But some of what’s been lost can be restored.”

She called for investment in original reporting, rebuilding communication teams at public health agencies, and direct outreach by scientists and doctors — noting that before US ties with the WHO were cut, the agency had begun partnering with platforms such as TikTok to reach wider audiences.

“Strong surveillance systems and coordinated responses will not be enough for the next outbreak,” Peeples concluded. “We also need to re-establish systems that help people understand what the evidence means – and what to do with it.”