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In the end, when the hantavirus case deflates in the media (meaning that with probabilities close to 100% it will not become a COVID-style pandemic), those who have so far spoken of a similar risk, or have contributed to spreading alarmism and terror, should also have the honesty to apologize. But I'm not deluding myself, it won't happen.
Do you know how it will end?
Those who fueled the panic will progressively adapt the narrative to the news of the moment: first by lowering the tone, then by shifting attention to other aspects, and finally by slowly making the topic disappear from the debate, without ever truly acknowledging that they contributed to creating a disproportionate climate compared to the available data. It's a fairly typical communication mechanism: the alarm is pushed as long as it generates attention, engagement, and emotional reactions; but when reality doesn't confirm the most catastrophic scenarios, a correction proportionate to the initial emphasis rarely comes. They simply move on to something else, leaving in public opinion the distrust, anxiety, and distorted perception of risk that narrative helped to create.
I read comments from people furious at health authorities and institutions, convinced they were hiding the arrival of the next global pandemic from us. Frenetic hourly updates, apocalyptic headlines, continuous notifications, as if we were facing the new black plague with hundreds of thousands of deaths. Let me be clear: this in no way seeks to diminish the deaths that have occurred or may occur in the future. Every single victim deserves the utmost respect.
However, when I speak of polarization and problems in science communication, I am referring precisely to phenomena related to these aspects. And frankly, when newspapers engage in clickbait and misinformation, I would almost pile them all up for a bonfire (too bad it's more complicated with digital versions).
The Andes hantavirus is certainly a serious problem: it has high lethality and must be carefully monitored, just like thousands of other potentially epidemic or pandemic viruses that are constantly evolving. But precisely the high lethality, paradoxically, is also one of the elements that tends to limit its large-scale spread (it also does not currently possess the transmissibility characteristics that made SARS-CoV-2 pandemic). To be clearer, it is not lethality alone that limits its spread, it is the combination of high lethality and low transmissibility.
The point is that this constant storytelling, this compulsive alarmism transformed into media entertainment, creates monsters. It increases skepticism in the most vulnerable part of public opinion towards health communication in general: that on vaccines, on risk assessment, on real emergencies. Because if every 3-4 months it seems the Apocalypse is coming, when something serious actually arrives (and sooner or later it will), a part of the people will no longer listen to anyone. Fortunately, I am not the only one saying this, but it is a phenomenon quite documented in the literature on risk perception and infodemics.
The literature on risk communication indeed shows that trust in institutions and the way risks are communicated deeply influence public perception of danger, while media amplification of health events can distort the perception of their true severity.
Correct information is right and valuable, but let's not exaggerate more than necessary.
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