CEO of Gallup International: Too Much Medical Info Leads to Confusion

Society | February 17, 2021, Wednesday // 10:53
Bulgaria: CEO of Gallup International: Too Much Medical Info Leads to Confusion

The overexposure to medical information in the media has the opposite effect on the community, told BNR political scientist Parvan Simeonov, Executive Director of Gallup International. The presence in the media from morning to night of the medical authorities, sanitary authorities, medical statisticians, mathematicians or simply people who are very scared of the virus producers a counter-effect, he said on the show "Before All".

 

"Information overload leads to the counter effect. The opposite effect is an absolute public stupor. You can see that any attempt to post on social media some info on this topic – by definition only raises laughter now. The public, instead of being informed more by this overload, stops listening to medics and gets confused increasingly more.

Being a researcher, I closely follow vaccination news. Indeed, there are symptoms showing a decline in the people’s desire to be vaccinated. And how could it be otherwise since from morning to evening the vaccines are being discussed. Instead of being urged to get vaccinated, we discuss which vaccine was not good for people over 60, which came late, which did not come at all, would the new strain have an impact or what vaccine was a pilot version?

I'm starting to worry that all this noise has to do with the upcoming election. The only ones who profit from the absence of other topics from public agenda before the election are the government. They will take advantage of both high and low coronavirus morbidity."

It’s high time we got rid of political campaigning through the coronavirus, Simeonov believes.

Most small parties registered independently to participate in the elections, and probably a large part of them realize that they will not pass the 4% barrier, so they want to keep their subsidy if they pass 1%, Parvan Simeonov noted. According to him, there are small formations which think that the new government‘s  tenure will not be very long and want to count their members to be ready to form coalitions at the next election.

"It’s another issue that the forecasts that the government will not last very long, may turn out to be wrong."

There is a public demand for clean politics. This appears to be the main message of the protests this summer, Simeonov stressed, adding that the anger of the patient is most fearsome.

The main question is will the Bulgarian society bear "Borisov 4" cabinet or will he have to take a step aside. This is the reason for the attempt to update voter lists, according to the political scientist.

Four years ago BSP did the same – with the inclusion of Elena Yoncheva, Prof. Ivo Hristov, Toma Tomov, he recalled.

"In the case of BSP, this worked."

As a paradox Parvan Simeonov quoted the fact that when BSP has chance to win, it actually loses this chance because, starting to scare the electorate, it mobilizes a negative vote. Now, despite its second position, BSP does not demonstrate its previous aggression - "when it does not scare, but sends positive messages, it is likely to win," he said.

 

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Tags: Bulgaria, Coronavirus, information overload, elections

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