Regarding the UK gov's new Covid campaign (“Act like you've got the virus”), I was asked on @SkyNews yesterday if “there is a problem with compliance now in terms of people adhering ... is the message is clear enough?”

Preparing took me down messaging rabbit holes.

🧵

2. On Friday night, to prepare for the interview, I duly looked at @DHSCgovuk's campaign.

Prof Whitty speaks to camera: “We must all stay home. If it is essential to go out, remember wash your hands, cover your face indoors, and keep your distance from others.”
3. The new campaign combines March 2020's strap-line – “Stay Home>Protect the NHS>Save Lives” with new messages (e.g., about the new variant).

“We all NEED” (below) is not the same as Whitty's “We MUST” - or the very clear "You MUST stay at home" text message from March 2020.
4. While looking online for the new campaign, I found this Telegraph description.

In fact, I saw this *before* the DHSC one.

I got confused since the words appeared in messaging from the first lockdown and I couldn't see them in the Whitty video.
5. Among many negative replies under the Telegraph tweet was the criticism that the 'new' campaign is “too late”, “MORE fear”; a “3 phrase mantra AGAIN”, “that ship has sailed”, “ANOTHER waste of money” – but apparently directed at the wrong campaign.
6. The same (old) words were used in the Evening Standard’s tweet about the new campaign - “If you go out, you can spread it. People will die" - but the link takes you to the new message.
7. Scrolling down the DHSC timeline to 8.1.21, the new campaign uses some images from the first lockdown campaign, but with wording adapted to the current situation.
8. A BBC Breakfast montage about the new campaign, topped and tailed with the Whitty-narrated video, included the words and images below (which are not in the video).
9. The message “Act like you’ve got it” – is, as @billHanage suggests, “good advice - BUT it has been good advice since March last year."

https://t.co/jP0UfgRiUH
10. And if “Act like you’ve got it” sounds familiar, it might be because @GrahamMedley said similar things on Newsnight last year.
11. So, what about the “problem with compliance”?

As @ReicherStephen writes, "that's the wrong question; adherence has been consistently high”.

@Yougov reported on 5.1.21 that 85% of people SUPPORT lockdown.

https://t.co/dYA106Al4L
12. So, people SUPPORT lockdown and report high ADHERENCE.

The simple fact is that not everyone CAN adhere to the instruction, “We must all stay home.”

As @AdamWagner1 wrote, “Problem is there have been mixed messages already on work.”

https://t.co/mAhh3JbGPM
13. 'Lockdown' rules (and meanings) have changed.

e.g., for many, it “is essential to go out” because the gov broadened the definition of key/critical worker, leading to more journeys, more public transport use, more pupils attending school, etc.

https://t.co/sDMNtAXhxS
14. And, as @ScienceShared writes, “The millions of people who cannot afford to self-isolate face a choice between Covid compliance and financial devastation.”

https://t.co/xK5SOFEc7d
15. To go from "schools are safe" to "schools are vectors of transmission", within 24 hours, from the same source, is such a spectacular communication failure: dizzying, chaotic, inconsistent, badly-timed, stress-inducing, trust-reducing.

Go to school don't go to school.

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Oh my Goodness!!!

I might have a panic attack due to excitement!!

Read this thread to the end...I just had an epiphany and my mind is blown. Actually, more than blown. More like OBLITERATED! This is the thing! This is the thing that will blow the entire thing out of the water!


Has this man been concealing his true identity?

Is this man a supposed 'dead' Seal Team Six soldier?

Witness protection to be kept safe until the right moment when all will be revealed?!

Who ELSE is alive that may have faked their death/gone into witness protection?


Were "golden tickets" inside the envelopes??


Are these "golden tickets" going to lead to their ultimate undoing?

Review crumbs on the board re: 'gold'.


#SEALTeam6 Trump re-tweeted this.
They shouldn't be.

The pattern is:
GOP in power - GOP dictates policy

Dems in power - GOP dictates policy


The Dems shouldn't legislate toward the GOP.

The GOP doesn't represent its constituents.

The GOP can push it's agenda on its own time.

If Dems push an agenda that actually helps people, it'll also actually help the GOP constituency.

The GOP won't. So give them nothing.

The Dems should ignore the GOP just like the GOP ignores the Dems.

Make them pay for every moment of obstruction.

Just a hard press on legislation that is unassailable and shine a light on the GOP.

Constant. Relentless. Unyielding.

Shut them out and shut them down.

The GOP is not a legitimate political party. It is an anti-democratic, fascist criminal syndicate with no interest whatsoever in governance.

Nobody should give them the slightest bit of credit or legitimacy ever again.

Not a fucking ounce.

Nobody should engage them in legitimate debate in Congress.

They should be pariahs and treated as unserious occupants of Congress.

Because these people were totally ok with their colleagues being killed in furtherance of the destruction of the insitution.

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This is a pretty valiant attempt to defend the "Feminist Glaciology" article, which says conventional wisdom is wrong, and this is a solid piece of scholarship. I'll beg to differ, because I think Jeffery, here, is confusing scholarship with "saying things that seem right".


The article is, at heart, deeply weird, even essentialist. Here, for example, is the claim that proposing climate engineering is a "man" thing. Also a "man" thing: attempting to get distance from a topic, approaching it in a disinterested fashion.


Also a "man" thing—physical courage. (I guess, not quite: physical courage "co-constitutes" masculinist glaciology along with nationalism and colonialism.)


There's criticism of a New York Times article that talks about glaciology adventures, which makes a similar point.


At the heart of this chunk is the claim that glaciology excludes women because of a narrative of scientific objectivity and physical adventure. This is a strong claim! It's not enough to say, hey, sure, sounds good. Is it true?