Fifteen years ago, I was part of a team of Idaho state government officials involved in planning for the next pandemic. Because of my media expertise (almost 20 years in journalism) I worked on the group tasked with developing a plan for communicating with the media and the public in times of crisis.

The number-one responsibility then for government communications experts operating in the midst of a big national or global health emergency was to provide the public with tangible activities as it was thought that failure to do so would lead to wide-spread fear, anxiety, depression and anger.

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