27 August

Public health often uses the same idea of ‘the public’ as shorthand for ‘everybody’. But societies don’t work like that. They run on social status. A tiny handful of people drive behaviours. Take alcohol as an example. We run massive public health campaigns about drinking, and drink driving too. But the actual problem is heavily focused in only a tiny handful of people. This makes it easier to deal with social problems too. Covid is exactly the same, it just needs targeted action at its breeding hubs (mostly schools). Most anti-vax nonsense globally is driven by fewer than 20 online ‘influencers’. Etc.