The trouble with transparency: How pandemic is challenging the CDC

Credibility, transparency, and trust. 

Ask public health experts about their field’s guiding principles for communication, and those three words come up over and over.

“Especially when you are communicating under very difficult circumstances, these are the three essential ingredients,” says Vish Viswanath, a professor of health communication at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

But it’s precisely the toughest of circumstances – such as an unpredictable virus – that can make it most difficult to uphold the ideals of effective communication. And there’s little doubt that recent days and weeks have tested those principles, as a COVID-19-weary nation has gone from a growing sense of optimism and even normality to, once again, rising caseloads, mask

“Paradox of expertise”The “breakthrough” challengeOverwhelmed with information