As of September 2021, there are more than seven groups discussing COVID-19 (Severe Special Infectious Pneumonia, New Coronary Pneumonia, Wuhan Pneumonia) on Facebook. One of the associations composed of people with medical backgrounds has even exceeded 19,000 people. It can be seen that experts are showing high enthusiasm in the scientific discussion of COVID-19. And because the COVID-19 issue spans multiple fields, it is highly academic. From basic research such as virus evolution, to the prevention and treatment of clinical medicine, and even public health epidemic control, border control, to the physical and mental impact of the lockdown on young children. A single topic may involve two or three professional fields, which also leads to more experts in different fields, which must be discussed on the community platform. Returning to the ultimate meaning of science, science should be a tool to promote the development of human society.
Science communication actually contains charming romantic feelings, and attempts to build a bridge between the profession and the public to allow two-way dialogue between science, and at the same time allow the public to participate in scientific discussions number list and feedback, which is conducive to the development of academic and industry in the future. However, there are completely different communication costs between scientists and the public. For the general public, understanding the background of the problem and relevant knowledge requires learning costs; for experts, it is necessary to take into account the translation costs of being easy to understand and avoiding over-interpretation. Because both parties have to pay a certain communication cost, it may reduce the willingness to discuss. As the epidemic changes, experts and the public not only discuss different topics, but also have different thinking logics. Because of the global Delta epidemic, the original discussion of the highly popular vaccine protection has been transformed into Delta high infectivity, or a combined discussion of the relationship between the two, but there are still differences.
Taiwan Science and Technology Media Center" (SMC) has been observing for a long time and initially found several phenomena. Is "breakthrough infection" inevitable or accidental? First of all, scientific data that seems unquestionable in the eyes of scientists, but people have different ways of interpreting it. The reason for this is that there is a big gap between the two in terms of background knowledge and basic scientific and logical cognition. Take "breakthrough infection" as an example. Experts think that this is a matter of course, but the public or social cognition may feel that it is really scary that such cases keep appearing. In the early days of the global epidemic, science was unable to provide answers that would satisfy the public. Because the academic community knew very little about COVID-19 at that time, and there was no research conclusion, so there were often statements such as "more research support is needed". It's just that the public is very anxious, and they mistakenly believe that science is omnipotent, and they are less able to understand the rigorous attitude of scientists.