When COVID-19 hit the U.S. and many public health experts were trying to act strong and confident, epidemiologist Michael Osterholm took a different approach. Asked about the novel coronavirus, he often replied honestly, “I don’t know.”
But Osterholm, now 71, knew at least as much as anyone else about infectious disease. He had spent his career investigating outbreaks, including bird flu in Vietnam, Ebola in Africa, HIV in the United States, SARS in Asia and MERS as an advisor for the royal family in the United Arab Emirates. When COVID-19 broke out, he was director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy in Minnesota, a position he still holds.
Osterholm’s approach to the pandemic — admitting uncertainty, declining to offer false hope, carefully explaining why he believes what he does, avoiding the political fray and staying nonjudgmental when guiding the misinformed — could be a template for how to restore trust in public health and science to a country that desperately needs it. I reached out to him to learn more about his personal philosophy of communication and to see if his experience guiding his audience through the worst of COVID-19 could help create a roadmap other scientists might follow in the future.
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