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CBC: Model, don’t shame, when people fail to follow COVID-19 advice, experts say

March 20, 2020 — 

As CBC reports:

Dr. Kelly MacDonald, the head of the section of infectious disease in the department of internal medicine for the University of Manitoba and the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, says some people feel they’re healthy, not realizing they could be a carrier.

“What you have to do is find a way to override that sense of personal invincibility,” she said. 

“Explain to them that the numbers are such that even if they have a very low chance of getting sick and only infecting one person … the downstream numbers of people that could get infected from that could be in the hundreds — and those people could be immuno-suppressed.”

MacDonald says in crises like this, people play an important role in holding their friends, family and people in their sphere of influence accountable.

“There are ways one step less of shaming to not endorse that kind of behaviour.”

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