There is so much misinformation being spread about the novel coronavirus it’s causing people to either panic or blatantly ignore the dangers. People are making bad decisions and some of your patients are confused.

You can help your patients and loved ones take on that information.

The virus has not been contained and we are still working to flatten the curve. We have taken positive steps through quarantine directives and we at the MMA would like to applaud our state public health experts for their sound direction.

The news cycle is a constant flow of grim statistics, predictions of death, and buzzworthy story titles that are more likely to incite panic and cause people to excessively worry. Media looks for linear explanations, which don’t exist right now. In interviews, experts are asked to distill complicated knowledge into succinct one-line answers, and in some cases are asked for a yes or no answer. In addition, there’s no shortage of experts expressing opinions and they too are oftentimes uncertain, and in conflict with their predictions.  In the end, media customarily reduces the issue to easily consumable data of a “total” cases-and-deaths ticker stamped on the screen/page. Scary, worst-case-scenario numbers tend disproportionately drive headlines. The flip side is when they offer up unwarranted mentions to unproven supposed 'treatments' or purely anecdotal new symptoms.

One suggestion is to recommend watching or listening to the daily updates by Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention and, especially, avoid national broadcast networks regardless of political affiliation/ideology. Dr. Shah provides the perfect balance of fact, science, caution and empathy with a Maine focus. Not only that, Maine media has proven to effectively capture the essence of what your neighbors are thinking when presenting their questions. We thank them for that.

Dr. Shah’s Maine CDC updates are normally scheduled for 11:15 a.m. each weekday, and as needed on weekends.

This video is available from Maine Public through livestream. They're also all archived at the same link so you can watch anytime:

https://livestream.com/mainepublictv/events/9044263

Public Radio audio can also be found at:

https://www.mainepublic.org/listen-live

Maine Public television also carries the updates