{"id":78607,"date":"2022-06-09T09:15:23","date_gmt":"2022-06-09T13:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=78607"},"modified":"2024-09-01T09:54:41","modified_gmt":"2024-09-01T13:54:41","slug":"macneil-adapting-to-life-with-covid-19-lessons-our-own-immune-system-can-teach-us-about-public-health-information","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2022\/06\/macneil-adapting-to-life-with-covid-19-lessons-our-own-immune-system-can-teach-us-about-public-health-information\/","title":{"rendered":"MACNEIL: Adapting to life with COVID-19: Lessons our own immune system can teach us about public health information"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Adam MacNeil, Associate Professor of Health Sciences at Brock University, had a piece recently published in <em><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/adapting-to-life-with-covid-19-lessons-our-own-immune-system-can-teach-us-about-public-health-information-180926\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Conversation<\/a><\/em> about the need for change in public health messaging and strategy as the context of the COVID-19 pandemic changes.<\/p>\n<p>He writes:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cThe last of Ontario\u2019s COVID-19 mask mandates \u2014 which have still been in effect in settings like hospitals and public transit \u2014 are scheduled to expire on June 11. While border protocols, such as random testing, have been extended at least until the end of June, long lineups at Toronto\u2019s Pearson International Airport are\u00a0fuelling calls to lift them.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>COVID-19 is still with us, but just as the virus has changed since 2020, so have our personal and public reactions toward it. As personal risk assessment becomes more important with fewer and fewer public health mandates, there are good lessons to be learned from how our immune system works.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Clear communication<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a0<\/em><em>In immunology, the way a threat \u2014 such as a virus \u2014 is presented to the immune system matters as much as the threat itself. The same can be said of public health messaging: its effectiveness rests on how it\u2019s presented.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The\u00a0immune system\u00a0is a diverse collection of tissues, cells, and molecules that \u2014 at its core \u2014 specialize in highly co-ordinated communication. Antibodies and T-cells are key in assessing how the immune system responds to a novel virus, like SARS-CoV-2. To recognize and respond to the threat, those cells need specific messages clearly presented in specific ways. This leads to tailored protective actions, including those carried out by antibodies.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Continue reading the full article on <em><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/adapting-to-life-with-covid-19-lessons-our-own-immune-system-can-teach-us-about-public-health-information-180926\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Conversation <\/a><\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/adapting-to-life-with-covid-19-lessons-our-own-immune-system-can-teach-us-about-public-health-information-180926\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Adam MacNeil, Associate Professor of Health Sciences at Brock University, had a piece recently published in The Conversation about the need for change in public health messaging and strategy as the context of the COVID-19 pandemic changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45641,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36,7,6],"tags":[3668,7488,1512,5512],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78607"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78607"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78611,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78607\/revisions\/78611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}