Q&A: NIAID’s Jeanne Marrazzo speaks on bird flu, mpox, and succeeding Anthony Fauci
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An interview with the director of the NIAID, Jeanne Marrazzo, on bird flu, mpox, the post-Fauci era and more.

Jeanne Marrazzo, new leader of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, everyone:

Can I make a quick digression? We recently had a long Covid [research] meeting where we had about 200 people, in person. And we can’t mandate mask-wearing, because it’s federal property. But there was a fair amount of disturbance that we couldn’t, and people weren’t wearing masks, and one person accused us of committing a microaggression by not wearing masks.

And I take that very seriously. But I thought to myself, it’s more that people just want to live a normal life. We really don’t want to go back. It was so painful. We’re still all traumatized. Let’s be honest about that. None of us are over it.

So there’s not a lot of appetite for raising an alarm, especially if it could be perceived subsequently as a false alarm.

Edit - thanks for the help in bypassing the paywall.

  • Wertheimer [any]
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    1 day ago

    Price did provide plenty of examples and research showing that shaming people is counterproductive, but it seemed (I haven't investigated all of the endnotes) like that was all for matters of personal motivation. I'm willing to listen to contrary evidence, of course, but don't we know that shame has worked in matters of public health before? There's a lot less secondhand smoke than there was when I was a kid, and not just in places where ordinances prohibit it. That is, shame doesn't get people to stop smoking, but it might get people to stop smoking around infants.

    • EelBolshevikism [none/use name]
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      1 day ago

      I think it's exactly what I said, then. Shame is a strong social motivator but not a good personal motivator. I think that's because social shame stands in the way of being seen as cool and good by people around you, which turns it into sort of a positive motivator by making friendship and social interaction necessitate self-moderation of the thing shame is being used to moderate.