Government communication over COVID-19 looks to have reinvented dysfunctional. Up to Sunday, that communication focused on justifying minimal intervention. Sporting events could go ahead. 68,000 could gasp as a jockey falls off his ride at the races. Schools can continue. There’s always another Art Class on ‘how to wash your hands correctly’ poster design. Let’s keep Britain working. The Budget is trumpeted for loosening the purse strings at just the right time. Employer, rather than employee, can celebrate the give-away. This Government, after all, knows how to protect profits. From Sunday, the tone darkens. Lobby journalists are drip fed new information. We are on a ‘World War 2-plus’ footing. A return to a Blitz mentality is needed. Over 70s will self-isolate for their own protection. Don’t panic mind you. Keep 6 foot away and you’ll be allowed to crawl out of your bunker to whimsically chat with your neighbour over the latest Prime Minister’s Churchillian speech. And you won’t go hungry. Rather than those dull ration books, we have the shiny new celebrants of zero-hour contracts. Delivery firms can provide you with extra powdered egg on your takeaway pizza. And our shortage in health equipment? God bless the arms manufacturers and their fungible knowledge. Rather than arming Saudi Arabia, their production lines can be realigned to manufacture scarce ventilators. Let’s pull together in unison with the invisible hand. Private hospital beds, perhaps akin to an Air B&B model, can always be rented to cater for the ‘underlying medical conditions’ sick.
So, why the change? What is going on? We can perhaps trust Keynes’ famous quote: “Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”. Could we understand Britain’s ‘do nothing’ outlier position, and its subsequent policy reinvention, through reference to a Government bamboozled by economic concepts? Let’s have a go and separate their media approach into two stages:
- Stage 1. We know that the NHS struggles with capacity. We know that, with the number of hospital beds more than halving over the past 30 years, annual flu epidemics are already problematic. COVID-19 therefore poses a severe planning headache. As illustrated by the terribly convenient BBC graphic, we need to delay the spread of the virus to ensure that the NHS is not swamped.
The question: How can we achieve that? In walks the behavioural economist, usually twiddling his thumbs in the Government’s nudge unit. Rather than adopting lessons in virus control from China, there are lessons instead from the behavioural research into the control of influenza. The key takeout message: As decision-making generates fatigue, we must plan for optimal timing of draconian action. Wait until the virus is at its peak. Beforehand, just ‘nudge’ people to better behaviour that reduce transmission rates. Drill into people that they need to stop touching. No more handshakes for basic etiquette. Control automatic tendencies to touch your face with disease ridden fingers. Sing happy birthday while washing your hands. Wait to impose the stricter policy. Folk are weak-willed and will grow tired of being told what to do. They will increasingly ignore you. By circumventing best laid plans, they will threaten policy effectiveness. This ‘libertarian paternalism’ also reveals another advantage: It’s only at the peak of the outbreak that the economy will grind to a halt. It is business as usual until then. Economic losses are minimised.
- Stage 2. Nudging fails and the Government is forced to outline its strategies for more strident action. What went wrong with its cunning plan? First, while it can largely control the media narrative by feeding the lobby journalist, Government scientists are forced to try and legitimise British inaction. The concept, herd immunity, raises its ugly head. A lucky-dip position is crafted: Inaction may be beneficial, possibly helping to halt a second infection wave. That creates two dilemmas for the Government. First, with knowledge that 40 million infections are needed (possibly leading to deaths in the hundreds of thousands), it annihilates the nudge. Rather than a narrative focused on avoiding loss through ‘herd immunity’ vaccines, it becomes repulsive language advertising that we can expect painful loss. Loss aversion steers people to panic. Second, it generates a notable scientific backlash. Scientists are initially gobsmacked. Once they pass their ‘is this satire?’ incomprehension, they come forward in their droves in stinging rebuke. Science becomes inconvenient. The Government is forced into action earlier than their behaviouralist assumed.
What are the overall lessons here? I’ll suggest two, both based on the prerequisite of transparency. First, behavioural economics should be used in conjunction with transparent application of the scientific evidence. To treat the current crisis in the same way as simply nudging people towards healthier behaviour goes beyond naive. It is incredibly irresponsible. Instead, we need to respect Government policy. We must deem it to be credible. Second, economic application without transparent leadership can be deeply unsettling. Consider the Telegraph reporter who uttered the unutterable: “Not to put too fine a point on it, from an entirely disinterested economic perspective, the COVID-19 might even prove mildly beneficial in the long term by disproportionately culling elderly dependents”. To what extent has the UK allowed Thatcherism, and an economy based on revelling in individualism, hinder the Government’s role in protecting the well-being of its people? When we are advised to give cigarettes to the homeless, so they don’t smoke contagious dog-ends off the street, perhaps we need to consider a rather unsettling truth? Our economic paradigm is not fit for purpose. The arrogance of the nudge has had its day.
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash