The 'we vs. me'

Apr. 12—Achieving herd immunity, which provides indirect protection from an infectious disease, is the way out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The CDC estimates that herd immunity can develop once 80% of the population is immune, either through vaccination or immunity developed through previous infection.

Haywood County Medical Director Dr. Mark Jaben said he's found those who have been skeptical about public health measures being promoted, whether is it wearing a mask or getting the vaccination, to be focused on a very small risk of what could happen versus a large risk that is staring them in the face.

"I think it comes down to the inability to judge risk," he said. "It could be an underlying desire for something to be a certain way, so they are focusing on a small point that allows that idea to be sustained. I acknowledge that if there is a bad side effect of the vaccine, that's 100% for the two to five people who experience it. But what's the risk of that versus getting the disease and not being fortunate enough to have an immune system that goes into overdrive?"

Jaben said Americans, widely known for their rugged individualistic traits, have long struggled with the "we vs. me" balance.

While independence can be a good thing in many situations, it didn't serve the country well during the pandemic, especially during a time where there was chaos and mixed messages.

For instance, the messaging around wearing masks was not handled well. Early on when PPE was in short supply, the message was that masks weren't effective — something said to preserve the supply for those likely to be in direct contact with the virus. As supply chains opened up, the mask message changed, but by then, skeptics had chosen a side.

Then, many in the nation began to conflate the virus with political or religious beliefs, but didn't understand that the virus simply didn't care about any of that, Jaben said, and infected people regardless of what they believed.

Another realization late in the game was that nobody had a grasp on magnitude of the misinformation and disinformation that was being spread about many aspects of the pandemic, he said.

"A lot want to blame social media, which is a great way to spread information, good, bad or ugly," he said. "But they didn't understand how deeply people were into paying attention to sources they wanted to pay attention to. Thinking about what we've all tried to do about getting information out, I don't know what we could have done differently. How do we get some cross-pollination among silos where we aren't listening to sources we shouldn't be listening to? It's something we need to do better at."