COVID seems to be surging once again, according to Julie Mazziotta in People Health. Omicron mutated several times over winter, including rapidly-spreading BA.2 and BA.2.12.1 versions. However, this time United States is responding differently. Mask mandates and other mitigations have largely faded. Home tests go unreported. Is cognitive dissonance about COVID taking over our senses?
How Does Cognitive Dissonance About COVID Work?
Cognitive dissonance is a personal mental situation, in which our attitudes, beliefs, or values conflict about something. For example, we are madly in love with someone but our friends warn us we cannot trust them. The only way to resolve the mental discomfort is to deny one or the other claim.
So we could have cognitive dissonance about COVID if the government keeps telling us the pandemic is still ongoing, but our friends tell us it is no big deal. Jessica Malaty Rivera, infectious disease epidemiologist at Pandemic Prevention Institute believes prevailing confusion is catching us off guard.
“A lot of people are getting sick and a lot of people are getting repeated infections,” Rivera points out. “We’re also operating with more blind spots today than we were previously, because we have less testing data.” Moreover, she is concerned a significant number of positive cases are missing from national statistics.
Do Rising Cases Mean We Should Be More Cautious?
Infectious disease epidemiologist Rivera is in favor of continuing masking when indoors, and avoiding “high-risk things like indoor dining”. There’s also a strong possibility of more Omicron sub-types emerging, and their potential risk is unknown.
That risk factor could change accordingly, and spread among us faster. Those of us without vaccines and boosters should get on with it, she says. There are only two ways to resolve community dissonance. Although it seems unlikely we will ever agree on which one.
Breaking News
8th of Patients Have Neurological Symptoms
US COVID Deaths 5 Big Facts Behind the Total
