PR book On-line Readings in Public Relations by Michael Turney
Covid-19 has taken crisis response to a whole new level.
© 2020-2023 Michael Turney Table of contents Practicing Public Relations
main page		 About the author

 
This article was initially written in July 2020, a little more than six months after the United States first heard of Covid-19 and several months after we experienced our first "lock-downs" and self-quarantines. At that point, the Covid death toll in the U.S. was nearing 150,000. Now (Sept. 2023), the Covid death-toll in the U.S. has passed 1.1 million and is nearing 7 million worldwide, with an additional half-million new cases of Covid-19 being reported worldwide every week.

I initially hesitated to discuss Covid-19 on this website because I am not a public health expert and had never had to deal with the public relations ramifications of a pandemic. Beyond that, since I don't claim to have such expertise, I had no reason to think anyone would come to this site looking for Covid-related advice, especially not when there are numerous government and medical websites with such expertise already operating extensive and accessible websites.

It seemed most appropriate to leave the Covid advice-giving to them. I still feel that way, but I've also come to think that it's appropriate for me to urge every public relations practitioner and public relations student I encounter to seek out and use that kind of Covid advice. So, that's what I'm trying to do here.

 
Initially, few people had any notion of the impact Covid-19 would have.

The first news reports treated it as just another, routine disease. New, yes; but we're used to hearing about new strains of the flu. -- That happens almost every year, and no one makes a big deal of it. -- In fact, lots of people, including the then-President of the United States, persisted in saying that Covid-19 was just another harmless strain of flu long after it been proven otherwise.

Consequently, it was initially possible and appropriate for people and organizations who weren't involved in healthcare -- and for others who didn't host any kinds of public gatherings -- to ignore, or at least not speak openly about, Covid-19. There was little or no pressure on them to announce what their response to Covid would be or what they were doing to protect their customers, clients, and employees from coming in contact with it.

But, that was before we realized Covid-19 wasn't "another new strain of the flu" and that we were on the verge of a worldwide pandemic.

 
Then, we experienced the power and terror of Covid-19.

In virtually every country around the world, people by the tens of thousands, and then by the hundreds of thousands, began contracted it and became deathly ill. -- Many of those who required hospitalization had to be placed on ventilators. -- And then, these people and countless others who never made it to a hospital began dying by the thousands and the tens of thousands all over the world, regardless of geographic and climatological conditions and the season of the year. People got sick and died in big cities and in rural agricultural areas, in totally undeveloped locations as well as in the most technologically-advanced ones, and in places with state-of-the-art hospitals and the most-advanced medical care known to science as well as places totally lacking in medical care.

In its first year and a half, Covid-19 was responsible for over 600,000 deaths in the United States and more than 4 million worldwide. It put tens of millions of people out of work, drastically reducing or completely cutting off the income they need to sustain their lives, and it came to threaten the life of virtually everyone on the planet.

In time, we came up with some partial defenses against its spread and other partial cures with varying degrees of effectiveness. But, governments and medical researchers and the worldwide health care community are continuing to work and struggling to contain the spread of the disease, to treat those who have become infected, to bury the dead, and to convince those who remain unvaccinated to get vaccinated as quickly as possible.

At the same time, we have been faced the development and spread of new and more virulent strains of the virus, with the Delta and Omicron variants having received the widest and most frightening publicity up to this point. But, they're not the only variants on the loose. In recent weeks we've started to hear about the EG.5 variant which is nicknamed "Eris" and seems to be on the verge of becoming the newest "dominant strain of Covid" in the United States. It's reportedly responsible for more than 20 percent of recent cases. But, it's not alone. Another new variant, FL.1.5.1, nicknamed "Fornax," is rising toward the top right behind it, accounting for about 14 percent of new cases.

Even more frightening may be another new variant which is not yet prevalent enough to show up in the Center for Disease Control (CDC) biweekly Covid statistics, but which seems to be raising red flags among researchers. It's the BA.2.86 strain of the Covid virus, nicknamed "Pirola," which is described as "a highly mutated strain of the virus." However, according to CBS News HealthWatch (9/01/2023), "Officials say it is too early to say whether that strain will cause more severe illness because of its worrying sum of mutations."

 
We may now be reaching the tipping point.

Having successfully developed, produced, and distributed safe and effective vaccines, and having increasing numbers of people taking those vaccines, we may be on the road to overcoming Covid. While that would be the best possible outcome, it's not the only possible outcome. And, the final outcome -- whatever it may be -- is still a long way off.

Unfortunately, in their eagerness to "return to normal" and in their personal euphoria over being vaccinated and thinking they're now completely safe {Fake news!], too many people are rushing out and are trying to return to their previous behaviors and ways of carrying on life without adequate regard for their own personal safety or that of others. I fear their exuberance may be the death of them and of countless other people.

Given the percentages of people around the world who have not yet been vaccinated -- either because they choose not to be, or because they live in an area or a country where vaccines are not available to everyone -- and combining that with the reckless abandon with which many people have stopped wearing masks and are demanding that every public gathering place return to operating at its pre-pandemic full capacity without any social distancing, it's very possible that Covid cases and the Covid death toll could once again surge to unheard of levels. It could literally be the worst disaster in world history just waiting to happen, and I pray that I don't live to see it.

In the midst of all this, the public is being confused by a hodgepodge of newly-proclaimed, or sometimes, canceled government mandates, public health advisories, and expert opinions which often contradict one another and do little other than stir up anxiety.

And, appallingly, we're simultaneously being bombarded with constant angry shouting, outrageous and dangerous recommendations, and wild blathering about Covid conspiracies by idiots on social media whose anger and dis-information is seeping more and more into our daily lives fueling shouting matches between socially-distancing mask-wearers who think everyone should be wearing masks and angry anti-maskers who condemn all masking recommendations as a violation of their right to personal freedom.

 
As a consequence, no one who deals with the public, especially not public relations practitioners, can afford to ignore Covid-19.

It is now such a dominant presence in the world that failing to address it when dealing with the public is likely to be immediately recognized and held against you. You may be perceived as stupid, uncaring, or deceitful if you're not completely up front with the public and immediately tell everyone with whom you or your organization are interacting:

Don't make anyone feel they have to ask for the first two pieces of information. And, certainly don't make them hunt for it. It should be readily apparent and immediately available. -- That means some combination of signs in your front window and on your door, banners on your website, handouts at your check-out counter and/or information booth, and optional messages on your phone system. All of which need to be simple and crystal clear. -- No jargon. No hype. No false promises. And, no beating about the bush.

I won't go into more detail about how to convey such information. That's for you to decide based on your knowledge and current relationships with your various publics.

If you feel you need further advice on how to handle this, I strongly urge you to get it from real experts. One excellent source of such expertise is: IABC's Covid-19 Resources hosted by the International Association of Business Communicators. It offers specific insight and details on the evolution of the Covid-19 pandemic and how various organizations have responded to it as well as discussing successful public relations responses to other public health crises. Among the articles, I recommend are:

Although they were published some time ago but within the Covid frame, all three are as relevant today as they were when they were first written.

 
Good luck to us all in getting safely through this pandemic which remains far from over.
 

Overview of crisis communication
Crisis portal page		 Stay well-informed to be ready
when a crisis hits		 Performing public relations in a crisis

7 Sept. 2023