The Trusty Shield Against a Pandemic

Thomas Hale (Oxford University) has, he believes, identified the factor that predicted whether countries would emerge from the Covid19 pandemic in 'good shape' (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/24/countries-covid-trust-damage-pandemic). Hale states that, in terms of their ability to deal with a pandemic, in 2019, countries, such as Slovenia, Spain, the UK and the USA, looked good on paper (in terms of medical services etc). When the virus arrived, they actually did poorly on measures such as deaths, economic damage and days they had to spend in lockdown. Countries that performed relatively well in the pandemic had, however, high levels of interpersonal trust. This is trust in other people, rather than trust in government (this can be dodgy). Interpersonal trust doesn't require actually knowing the other people. It's a belief they will 'do the right thing'. As Hale points out, trust in other people is important in many aspects of fighting a pandemic (such as social distancing). Fotunately, he believes that interpersonal trust can be enhanced in a variety of ways. Rather obviously, it is generally the first casualty of polarisation in society.