Our government has provided false information, not out of maliciousness, but due to the nature of our culture and system.

Prior to the internet, the most reliable system of mass information was based upon the top-down authoritative model. Hence the responsibility for solutions is landed squarely into the hands of those who made their way to the top.

In other words, society places all its eggs into the one intellectual and theoretical basket of academics and authority figures like Chris Whitty.

But, whenever a handful of people are obligated to provide instruction and create policies for a mass population, they can only really speak in blanket statements. This means vital information is omitted for fear of being misinterpreted.

One example of this was the instruction about masks. CoVID19 is a highly infectious airborne illness. Yet our experts advised us not to wear them. Not because they are ineffective, but because there is the potential for greater infection if used incorrectly.

The other example was to insist people stay inside. But we know fresh open air is safer than being cooped up indoors in tiny spaces (which act like incubators). Again they are using blanket reasoning to assume everyone will push it and get too close.

I can understand their reasoning. For anyone tasked with the problem of educating 68 million people, can, of course, speak only in broad terms. So instead of providing complete information, they advised us to simply wash our hands.

This inadequate advice has proven fatal to many and potentially…even our own Prime Minster.
The solution would be a decentralized system where more detailed, nuanced information could be disseminated to the public. This could be the provision of education on mask use along with public access to data, facts, figures and hard science behind the virus - including theories and potential cures.
But more important is the preservation of our free flow of information from existing sources like the internet.

I suspect that the manipulation of #COVID9 information by the social media giants has had a detrimental effect. Understandably people can sense that the information is inadequate. So instead of stopping "fake news" this censorship has the opposite effect. It's led folks to clutch at any old anti-government theory, from any old Tom, Dick or David Icke in order to fill in the void and make some sense of it all.

We got the same after 911 where the withholding of the truth (even to this day) has resulted in a generation of extreme government distrust.

The lack of full disclosure and centralized control of information has spawned the worst of the hive mind instead of championing the best.