The public response to rules and advice on the Coronavirus are incredibly unsettling with over half the population unsure of which source to believe when it comes to the safety of themselves and loved ones in these trying times.
With the majority of media attention leaning more towards politicians and the opinions of the government- information can become bias and the scientific facts become hidden amongst all the scare-mongering.
According to BMJ when quoting Abbasi they write, “Importantly, suppressing science, whether by delaying publication, cherry-picking favourable research, or gagging scientists, is a danger to public health and maladministration of taxpayers’ money when entangled with commercial decisions,” he argues. “When good science is suppressed, people die.”
Most people will, unfortunately, be aware of this feeling; confused as to which piece of information to lean more towards. It can be argued that at this stage of the coronavirus, the government has seemed to perform mistake after mistake when confronting and issuing the actions we have to take to protect our country.
Though from the beginning statistics showed the rising of the virus, Boris Johnson was still slow to reduce social interaction and lockdown rules. While other countries lead out plans and lockdowns, we continued to live life as the norm. However, at every bump we came across the government assured us they were following the science.
The main question that should be asked is; is the actions of our government justified with science or are they bias towards their need of a secure economy? The relationship between science, politics and the well being of our country is far more complicated than we can begin to imagine. It has been proven countless times that the job of ensuring security within our country’s finances and the economic state has been put above the lives of the working class.
Politicians tend to favour the advice that best suits their preferences and the media coverage allows their bias thoughts to outshine factual scientific evidence that may state otherwise.