Mitigation of the COVID-19 Virus Pandemic

Abstract

The mitigation of the COVID-19 pandemic has so far revealed large variations regarding reported infectives and fatalities from different countries and regions. The differential equation models used to simulate virus dissemination and the data gathering of infectives and diseased are however susceptible to a range of observational and cognitive biases. The high initial fatality risk reported may have motivated very radical lockdown mitigation measures. The virus mitigation strategy was also influenced by interlocking contingencies between politicians and media. The effects of the mitigative measures should however be evaluated due to their potential collateral damage to the economy as well as on public health issues not directly related to the pandemic. Lessons learned from combatting the COVID-19 pandemic should be utilized to develop knowledge and contingency preparedness to meet global tragedies and new virus pandemics, including our ability to mitigate observational and cognitive biases and to respect the habitats of wildlife.

How Confirmation Bias Influences Risk and Contingency Management

“…Discussingtheaboveobservations,wedonotintendtocritiquepoliticalleadersnorblamethe situationonpoliticalideologies.Thispaperexploresanimportantissueininformationprocessing anddecision-making,i.e.,confirmatorybiasimpedeseffectiveandefficientriskandcontingency -19pandemic(e.g.,Bailey&Breslin,2021;Dwivedietal.,2020;Wright,2021aWright, ,2021b,such ashowwecanbetterunderstandthechallengesofCOVID-19sothatwecanenhanceinformation managementinthedigitalage(Dwivedietal.,2020),andhowtoutilizeourexperiencesince2019to developknowledgeandcontingencypreparednesstomeetglobaltragediesandnewviruspandemics inthefuture (Wright,2021a(Wright, ,2021b. Despite the research, the relationship between confirmatory bias and the fighting againstCOVID-19isstillunclear.Inotherwords,littleresearchhasbeendonetostudythe effectofconfirmatorybiasonthecontroloftheCOVID-19.Ourcurrentstudyaddresses thisresearchdeficiencyandthuscontributestoriskandcontingencymanagementresearch byhighlightingtheimportanceofavoidingconfirmatorybiasinmanagement.Theresults from our current study should be helpful for both academic researchers and managerial practitioners.…”