Dear Pandemic
Dear Pandemic
Social media/infodemic/science communication/spanish language
I am nominating the team behind the social-media based COVID-19 science communication campaign, Dear Pandemic because they have gone above and beyond to meet the World Health Organization’s call-to-action for scientists to intervene against the COVID-19 infodemic. Dear Pandemic is a science communication campaign that aims to provide curated, comprehensive, and timely information about COVID-19 to a general audience on social media. For more than a year, Dear Pandemic’s volunteer team has been faithfully committed to the mission of helping everyday people navigate the overwhelming amount of COVID-19 information circulating on social media. Combined, the team of more than 20 scientists has volunteered thousands of hours to this mission and has answered nearly a thousand reader questions. Dear Pandemic’s readership has grown to reach more than a million people per month. Their Spanish-language channel, in particular, has seen 10-fold growth in the last 6 months. What is more, the women behind the project have done this on top of juggling the responsibilities of their full-time jobs, tenure pressures, families, and routines that were upended by the pandemic. As one reader put it, “In the chaos that has been our world in the past year +, I have found myself relying on you ladies for all my information. I know I am getting accurate information that I can trust, and that isn’t always easy! So, truly, I appreciate every one of you.” – Andrea, April 2021. Dear Pandemic’s team of scientists has made an indelible, positive contribution to the world’s public health response to the pandemic by pumping good information into the poisonous bog of information available on social media, for more than a year. For free.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/dear-pandemic-meet-the-women-answering-burning-covid-19-questions
https://time.com/5947557/covid-19-vaccine-misinformation-moms
https://fortune.com/2021/03/12/covid-questions-dear-pandemic-female-scientists
https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news/epidemiology-professor-offers-clarity-confusing-time