Remarks on COVID-19 pandemic in Poland : a health policy perspective

Occurrence of the COVID-19 Pandemic was totally unexpected, and governments of all countries were surprised. Pandemics always raises the feeling of fear and health policy is interested in such phenomena. In this specific case it was fully justified as COVID-19 was new and unknown. Everywhere the populations found themselves in psychological position presented years ago by Ulrich Beck in book Risk Society. Influencing and shaping society’s emotions - both feelings of safety and feelings of fear had a fundamental importance for social behaviour. In time when first information about COVID-19 came from China and Poland was still free from any infection, the government’s representatives tried to play down the seriousness of the virus and equated the COVID-19 to a seasonal flu. At that time, it could have been justified as an attempt to avoid panic. But with the first episodes of infections the tone of messages essentially changed, and the virus was presented as a lethal danger. Such a context was applied as a direct rationalization of general lockdown and a broad catalogue of restrictions in social contacts. However, when The Presidential Election was approaching (with the act of balloting demanding presence of people in a polling station), the content of messages presented to the public changed again. In the new version the virus itself was shown as rather innocent and the pandemic was contained and under control. In this way all voters, including elderly people, were encouraged to take part in the election. If lessons are to be drawn from the past, we might conclude that in time of a pandemic, the instrumental management of social emotions and feelings is not always the best way of communicating with the general public.