Managing Contagion: COVID-19, public health, and reflexive behavior

ABSTRACT This paper characterizes a pandemic as kind of contagion, and describes contagion two-level, two-direction, reflexive feedback loop system. In such system, expert opinions for managing can act self-fulfilling prophecies due to how they influence collective belief formation. However, when multiple experts produce that prophecies, this fragment society’s response pandemic, worsening rather than ameliorating it. models possible outcome by distinguishing two competing opinions, appealing respectively people in club good common pool types employment/health insurance situations, argues combat fragmentation opinion about address public health policy needs attend the nature reasoning. It entails asking just legitimate deliberative institutions function an ‘inclusive noncoercive’ way allows society reconcile visions regarding system-wide crises pandemics.