Gov­ern­ment is on the right track in pro­vid­ing reg­u­lar up­dates to the pub­lic on the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. What it needs to avoid, how­ev­er, is even the slight­est per­cep­tion that vi­tal in­for­ma­tion is be­ing hid­den from the pub­lic.

This is a per­cep­tion that can eas­i­ly take hold since there has been a steady clamp­ing down on the amount of in­for­ma­tion be­ing re­leased to the pub­lic.

When the first case was re­port­ed, suf­fi­cient in­for­ma­tion was pro­vid­ed, in­clud­ing the age and gen­der of that pa­tient, to pro­vide an ac­cept­able lev­el of trans­paren­cy with­out breach­ing pa­tient con­fi­den­tial­i­ty.

How­ev­er, in the days that fol­lowed, the au­thor­i­ties have been less open about the spread of the coro­n­avirus, pro­vid­ing just ba­sic fig­ures and re­peat­ing warn­ings about the need to “flat­ten the curve” in twice dai­ly press re­leas­es.

It cer­tain­ly hasn’t helped that the main spokesper­sons are be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly de­fen­sive in their re­spons­es to prob­ing me­dia ques­tions at the brief­in­gs which are broad­cast live.

This not-too-sub­tle shift in mes­sag­ing can erode pub­lic trust in gov­ern­ment’s COVID-19 strat­e­gy and opens up many loop­holes for the spread of fake news about the pan­dem­ic. This is a de­vel­op­ment that the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WHO) has al­ready la­belled as an “in­fo­dem­ic” and if it takes hold in this coun­try it will de­feat the best pub­lic health ef­forts to keep the virus at bay.

We there­fore want to re­mind Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, who is grow­ing in­creas­ing­ly im­pa­tient at the dai­ly bar­rage of ques­tions from re­porters, that in­ter­act­ing with the me­dia in an open and trans­par­ent man­ner is the best way to build and main­tain trust with the wider pub­lic.

It is vi­ital, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing this pe­ri­od when the ma­jor­i­ty of cit­i­zens are re­quired to stay in­doors, that they are able to par­tic­i­pate in and ac­cess in­for­ma­tion about COVID-19 de­ci­sions. This is where the me­dia comes in as a vi­tal chan­nel for that in­for­ma­tion. Re­porters are ask­ing ques­tions on be­half of cit­i­zens who need to be sup­plied with suf­fi­cient in­for­ma­tion to un­der­stand why they are be­ing asked to make in­creas­ing sac­ri­fices in their dai­ly lives for the greater good of pub­lic health.

Demon­strat­ing trans­paren­cy rather than ob­fus­ca­tion re­quires an ad­di­tion­al ef­fort on the part of the au­thor­i­ties but it is es­sen­tial, at every stage of steer­ing T&T through this pan­dem­ic, that all their ac­tions are clear­ly and quick­ly ex­plained to the pub­lic. To do oth­er­wise would in­flict dam­age that will per­sist long af­ter this coro­n­avirus cri­sis has passed.

There have been prece­dents set in oth­er parts of the world which prove that tran­paren­cy with pan­dem­ic da­ta has helped ex­perts and cit­i­zens im­prove their un­der­stand­ing of how the virus func­tions, al­lay­ing fears and dis­pelling fake news

What will most ben­e­fit cit­i­zens is trans­par­ent com­mu­ni­ca­tion of the pub­lic health strat­e­gy for tack­ling the coro­n­avirus via reg­u­lar press brief­in­gs and re­leas­es. That means con­sis­tent­ly an­swer­ing ques­tions about COVID-19 in a man­ner that will pro­tect cit­i­zens from an “in­fo­dem­ic.”