Well it certainly has been that.
I'm no medical professional, but my boss is, and she also is the health authority for our county and one other. I piddle around on the admin side, but because we're a small clinic we all have to deal with patients, particularly phone calls. And because we get a ton of calls about COVID, doc tries to keep us briefed on the legits. My wife is also a medical provider there, and she says I can't embarrass her (or mislead patients) by not knowing stuff or misrepresenting it. I've formed two opinions during all this. 1) our patients, and possibly the public at large, is really, really dumb about medical things. Like, you can't imagine the stuff people believe, not just about this, but about medicine and their own bodies in general. 2) as I hash stuff out with Doc and Mrs. DeTiger to make sure I'm not saying the wrong stuff, I've come to believe the messaging has been really poor from the government and health care officials. Granted the media they often have to speak through is a hot mess, but I don't think they've done a good job of explaining the things they're trying to say. They need editors in the worst way. Nobody can foresee everything, but there is a basic level of anticipating the questions people will have--ask yourself "have I answered those?"--and how people are likely to misunderstand what you've said--ask yourself "have I clarified my points?" No, they just put out sound bytes, are happy about it, the media microwaves it and folds it into whatever picture they'd like to paint that day, and boom.....our patients, even the smarter ones, are misinformed.
Granted I am certainly not the be-all end-all of covid info. But I do trust the people I work for, and they do their best to prep me with the basics for the public's consumption.
