Why Coming Up With Effective Interventions To Address COVID-19 Is So Hard | FiveThirtyEight

Why Coming Up With Effective Interventions To Address COVID-19 Is So Hard | FiveThirtyEight

Why COVID-19 remains a health-policy riddle

Part of the reason that health-policy officials have struggled in the face of the COVID-19, writes behavioural scientist Neil Lewis Jr., is that it’s very hard to know what interventions will motivate people to change their behaviours — and why. For example, do people who won’t wear masks think the virus isn't risky, because they don’t think masks work, or just because others aren’t wearing them? To make matters worse, surveys or studies often represent only a portion of the population — often white and wealthy — leaving those most at risk underrepresented. “Data can be instructive, but it does not speak for itself,” writes Lewis. “Behind every data point is a person. And with something like the coronavirus, where people are so deeply affected, we have to think about the ethics of intervening in people’s lives.”

FiveThirtyEight | 8 min read