Jim Fitzpatrick

Columnist

Jim Fitzpatrick,

Journalist and Broadcaster

A Nudge In The Right Direction

Journalist and broadcaster Jim Fitzpatrick reflects on how the Government has dealt with the pandemic so far.

Does anyone remember the government’s “nudge unit”? We haven’t heard much about it for a couple of years. But the behavioural insights team was central to how Downing Street first responded to the emerging COVID-19 threat (before it even had the name) back in early 2020.

Nudge theory is about encouraging widespread behavioural change through coaxing people – sometimes without them even realising – to take individual decisions about their lives. The aggregate result from millions of individual decisions can be significant.

The reason we haven’t heard much about nudge theory in a while is that its insights guided a light touch approach to the pandemic which was widely criticised and quickly jettisoned in favour of more draconian government interventions and the apparently inevitable lockdown that followed. It didn’t help the government’s case that senior figures were also talking about “herd immunity” as something they wanted to encourage – this was in March 2020 when vaccines were but a dream and the deaths in their tens of thousands were yet to hit.

But, perhaps, now is the time to reconsider some of the ideas and insights that the nudge unit might suggest. For, two years into this pandemic, it is clear that managing population behaviour – whether that be encouraging mask wearing or the uptake of vaccines – is not a straightforward issue.

Like many issues these days, social media tends to simplify the debate into two caricatured camps. There’s the pro-mask, provaccination, pro-lockdown camp who want to suspend all human contact until the pandemic has passed in 2050 or thereabouts. And then there’s the anti-mask, anti-vaccine, anti-lockdown camp who want to roam the streets spreading death like the rats of a medieval plague. Neither, of course, is a fair description, and there are many nuanced positions in between.

As a journalist who relies upon verifiable facts, I believe there are many clear things we can now say about the virus. But it’s not as simple as shouting “follow the science”. What “science” do you mean? Do you mean the medical science about the effects of COVID-19; the evolving science about the transmission of the virus; the behavioural science about how to manage a diverse population; the psychological science around mental wellbeing in a pandemic and responses to lockdown and other restrictions; or the economic science about what costs the disease and our general response will impose on generations to come?

For instance, could complete lockdown have been avoided in March 2020 if behaviours had changed sufficiently without legal coercion and resources had been devoted to protecting the most vulnerable? Not a “let it rip” philosophy, but a “manage it carefully” approach? The impacts on education of lockdown are surely a cost that cannot be fully quantified but which we know sits hardest upon the most disadvantaged.

The challenge now appears to be a need to get more people their third jabs and ensure that people continue to comply with proper protections, like mask wearing, in public. This is where creative thinkers – like the nudge unit – need to produce some answers quickly.

The last two years must surely teach us that no government had all the answers and got everything right from the beginning. The important thing is to keep learning and keep changing our approach based on our developing knowledge and the evolving situation. The time for recriminations will come. In the meantime, let’s keep doing what has the best chance of the best overall outcomes.

“For two years into this pandemic it is clear that managing population behaviour – whether that be encouraging mask wearing or the uptake of vaccines – is not a straightforward issue.”