I have been reading a classic account of the 1918 flu epidemic Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World by Laura Spinney and among many other great quotes I found this one:
trust is not something that can be built up quickly. If it is not in place when a pandemic declares itself, then however good the information being circulated, it probably won’t be heeded.
It would be an in interesting study to look at the SARS-CoV-2 reproduction rates in different countries and to correlate it with trust. Possibly made complicated by authoritarian countries where the trust might be low but the government can impose the restrictions.
