THE JOHNS HOPKINS CENTER FOR HEALTH SECURITY
Project Team
Monica Schoch-Spana, PhD, Senior Associate, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
Matthew P. Shearer, MPH, Senior Analyst, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
Emily K. Brunson, PhD, MPH, Associate Professor, Texas State University
Sanjana Ravi, MPH, Senior Analyst, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
Tara Kirk Sell, PhD, MA, Senior Associate, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
Hannah Chandler, MPH Candidate, Columbia University
Gigi Kwik Gronvall, PhD, Senior Associate, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
Recommended Citation
Schoch-Spana M, Brunson EK, Shearer MP, Ravi S, Sell TK, Chandler H, Gronvall GK. The SPARS Pandemic, 2025-2028: A Futuristic Scenario for Public Health Risk Communicators. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security; October 2017.
About the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security works to protect people from epidemics and disasters and build resilient communities through innovative scholarship, engagement, and research that strengthens the organizations, systems, policies, and programs essential to preventing and responding to public health crises. The Center is part of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and is located in Baltimore, MD.
Table of Contents
Preface
A Possible Future in 2025: The “Echo Chamber” – 1
Response
Chapter One: The SPARS Outbreak Begins – 4
Chapter Two: A Possible Cure – 8
Chapter Three: A Potential Vaccine – 11
Chapter Four: Users Beware – 14
Chapter Five: Going Viral – 19
Chapter Six: The Grass is Always Greener – 23
Chapter Seven: The Voice – 25
Chapter Eight: Are You Talking To Me? – 29
Chapter Nine: Changing Horses Midstream – 31
Chapter Ten: Head of the Line Privileges – 34
Chapter Eleven: Standing in Line, Protesting Online – 37
Chapter Twelve: Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket – 40
Chapter Thirteen: Lovers and Haters – 43
Chapter Fourteen: The Grass is Always Greener, Part II – 49
Chapter Fifteen: Are You Talking to Me, Part II – 52
Chapter Sixteen: Antibiotics, HO! – 55
Recovery
Chapter Seventeen: Vaccine Injury – 59
Chapter Eighteen: Acknowledging Loss – 63
Chapter Nineteen: SPARS Aftermath – 66
References & Appendices
References – 67
Acronyms – 68
Appendix A: Response Scenario Timeline – 69
Appendix B: Response Scenario Communication Dilemmas – 73
Appendix C: Recovery Scenario Timeline- 75
Appendix D: Recovery Scenario Communication Dilemmas – 76
Acknowledgements
The project team is grateful to Kunal Rambhia, Meredith Li-Vollmer, Shari Veil, Brad Smith, Rita Obey, Ji Sun Lee, and the members of the Expert Working Group on Medical Countermeasure (MCM) Communication Strategies for their contributions and feedback throughout the development process for this document.
Disclaimer
This is a hypothetical scenario designed to illustrate the public health risk communication challenges that could potentially emerge during a naturally occurring infectious disease outbreak requiring development and distribution of novel and/or investigational drugs, vaccines, therapeutics, or other medical countermeasures.
The infectious pathogen, medical countermeasures, characters, news media excerpts, social media posts, and government agency responses described herein are entirely fictional.
PREFACE
POSSIBLE FUTURE IN 2025: THE “ECHO CHAMBER” UNBRIDLED GLOBAL ACCESS TO INFORMATION COUPLED WITH SOCIAL FRAGMENTATION AND SELF -AFFIRMING WORLDVIEWS
Scenario Purpose
The following narrative comprises a futuristic scenario that illustrates communication dilemmas concerning medical countermeasures (MCMs) that could plausibly emerge in the not-so-distant future. Its purpose is to prompt users, both individually and in discussion with others, to imagine the dynamic and oftentimes conflicted circumstances in which communication around emergency MCM development, distribution, and uptake takes place. While engaged with a rigorous simulated health emergency, scenario readers have the opportunity to mentally “rehearse” responses while also weighing the implications of their actions. At the same time, readers have a chance to consider what potential measures implemented in today’s environment might avert comparable communication dilemmas or classes of dilemmas in the future.
Generation Purpose
This prospective scenario was developed through a combination of inductive and deductive approaches delineated by Ogilvy and Schwartz.1 The timeframe for the scenario (the years 2025-2028) was selected first, and then major socioeconomic, demographic, technological, and environmental trends likely to have emerged by that period were identified. Specifically, two dominant trends likely to influence regulatory and public responses to future public health emergencies were selected: one, varying degrees of access to information technology; and two, varying levels of fragmentation among populations along social, political, religious, ideological, and cultural lines. A scenario matrix was then constructed, illustrating four possible worlds shaped by these trends, with consideration given to both constant and unpredictable driving forces.
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The SPARS Pandemic
PREFACE
Ultimately, a world comprised of isolated and highly fragmented communities with widespread access to information technology—dubbed “the echo-chamber”—was selected as the future in which the prospective scenario would take place. From this point, scenario-specific storylines were then developed, drawing on subject matter expertise, historical accounts of past medical countermeasure crises, contemporary media reports, and scholarly literature in sociology, emergency preparedness, health education, and risk and crisis communication. These sources were used to identify communication challenges likely to emerge in future public health emergencies.
This prospective scenario is not intended to predict events to come; rather, it is meant to serve as a plausible narrative that illustrates a broad range of serious and frequently encountered challenges in the realm of risk and crisis communication.
Scenario Environment
In the year 2025, the world has become simultaneously more connected, yet more divided. Nearly universal access to wireless internet and new technology—including internet accessing technology (IAT): thin, flexible screens that can be temporarily attached to briefcases, backpacks, or clothing and used to stream content from the internet—has provided the means for readily sharing news and information. However, many have chosen to self-restrict the sources they turn to for information, often electing to interact only with those with whom they agree. This trend has increasingly isolated cliques from one another, making communication across and between these groups more and more difficult.
From a government standpoint, the current administration is led by President Randall Archer, who took office in January 2025. Archer served as Vice President under President Jaclyn Bennett (20202024), who did not seek a second term due to health concerns. The two remain close and Bennett acts as a close confidante and unofficial advisor to President Archer. The majority of President Archer’s senior staff, including Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Cindra Nagel, are carryovers from Bennett’s administration. At the time of the initial SPARS outbreak Nagel has served in this position for just over three years. In regards to MCM communication more specifically, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and other public health agencies have increasingly adopted a diverse range of Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
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PREFACE
Social media technologies, including long-existing platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter, as well as emerging platforms like ZapQ, a platform that enables users to aggregate and archive selected media content from other platforms and communicate with cloud-based social groups based on common interests and current events. Federal and state public health organizations have also developed agency-specific applications and ramped up efforts to maintain and update agency websites.
Challenging their technological grip, however, are the diversity of new information and media platforms and the speed with which the social media community evolves. Moreover, while technologically savvy and capable, these agencies still lag in terms of their “multilingual” skills, cultural competence, and ability to be present on all forms of social media. Additionally, these agencies face considerable budget constraints, which further complicate their efforts to expand their presence across the aforementioned platforms, increase social media literacy among their communication workforces, and improve public uptake of key messages.
Scenario Organization & Use
This scenario was designed to illustrate the public health risk communication challenges associated with distribution of emergency medical countermeasures during an infectious disease pandemic. The story is organized chronologically, and each chapter concludes with a treatment of key communication dilemmas and corresponding discussion questions. Some questions are targeted towards challenges faced by risk communicators representing federal agencies, while others address issues more relevant to state and local risk communicators.
As such, users may find it most helpful to run the scenario as a tabletop exercise. Alternatively, if users prefer to examine select communication dilemmas rather than proceed chronologically through the entire scenario, they may refer to Appendices A-D, which contain the timelines for the response and recovery phases of the story, as well as indices of the communication dilemmas and their corresponding page numbers.
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RESPONSE
THE SPARS OUTBREAK BEGINS
CHAPTER ONE
In mid-October 2025, three deaths were reported among members of the First Baptist Church of St. Paul, Minnesota. Two of the church members had recently returned from a missionary trip to the Philippines, where they provided relief to victims of regional floods. The third was the mother of a church member who had also traveled to the Philippines with the church group but who had been only mildly sick himself. Based on the patients’ reported symptoms, healthcare providers initially guessed that they had died from seasonal influenza, which health officials predicted would be particularly virulent and widespread that fall. However, laboratory tests were negative for influenza. Unable to identify the causative agent, officials at the Minnesota Department of Health’s Public Health Labora – Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
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Story sent the patients’ clinical specimens to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), where scientists confirmed that the patients did not have influenza. One CDC scientist recalled reading a recent ProMed dispatch describing the emergence of a novel coronavirus in Southeast Asia, and ran a pancoronavirus RT-PCR test. A week later, the CDC team confirmed that the three patients were, in fact, infected with a novel coronavirus, which was dubbed the St. Paul Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SPARS-CoV, or SPARS), after the city where the first cluster of cases had been identified.
The CDC monitored the situation closely, working with partners in Southeast Asia to quickly develop a case definition for SPARS. Within four weeks of CDC publishing a working case definition on its website,
nearly two hundred suspected cases of SPARS were reported across Minnesota and in six other states.
Given that flu season was just getting underway and that a rapid diagnostic test for SPARS-CoV infection
was not yet available, CDC officials could not be sure if these were, in fact, true cases of SPARS.
Nevertheless, on November 17, HHS Secretary Dr. Cindra Nagel notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the US cluster of SPARS cases, concerned that the outbreak might constitute a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).
As transmission of SPARS was determined to occur
via droplet spread, the CDC initially recommended
that everyone diligently maintain hand hygiene and
frequently disinfect potentially contaminated surfaces.
CDC officials further urged anyone with severe flulike symptoms to seek immediate medical attention.
Public health officials were concerned that the
upcoming Thanksgiving holiday and Black Friday
shopping activities would facilitate the spread of
SPARS, but they remained confident that the aware-
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CHAPTER ONE
ness and prevention messages disseminated annually for seasonal influenza, combined with isolation
procedures for suspected cases, would be effective at countering the spread of SPARS. These messages
were spread via a variety of traditional and social media sources, including Facebook, Instagram,
Reddit, Twitter, and ZapQ.
Concern among many Americans about the severity of SPARS at this point in the outbreak was
moderately high. The public’s concern was compounded by the apparent virulence of the pathogen. At
the outset of the SPARS outbreak, physicians’ understanding of the disease stemmed primarily from
extremely severe cases resulting in pneumonia or hypoxia that required hospitalization and extensive
medical treatment. Mild cases of the disease, which produced symptoms including cough, fever,
headaches, and malaise, were often perceived as the flu by the people who had them and consequently
often went untreated and undiagnosed by medical personnel. As a result, early case fatality estimates
were inflated. By late November, the CDC reported an initial estimated SPARS case fatality rate of
4.7% (By contrast, WHO reported that the overall case fatality rate for SARS was 14-15% and over
50% for people over the age of 64. Later in the SPARS outbreak, data that included more accurate
estimates of mild SPARS cases indicated a case fatality rate of only 0.6%).
Two additional features of the SPARS virus that were not appreciated at the beginning of the
pandemic, but that impacted how the outbreak played out, are also important to consider in a review of
this event. First, the virus had an extended incubation period (seven to ten days) compared to its latent
period (four to five days). Thus, infected persons could spread the virus for up to nearly a week before
showing symptoms of the disease themselves. As a result, isolating sick SPARS patients proved to be
less effective than isolating patients infected by other, better-characterized respiratory diseases.
Second, morbidity and mortality from SPARS were both significantly higher in children than adults.
Pregnant women and those with chronic respiratory conditions like asthma and emphysema were also
at a higher risk for both disease complications and death.
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CHAPTER ONE
COMMUNICATION DILEMMA
Engendering Public Trust and a
S e n s e o f S e l f – E f f i c a c y Wh e n a C r i s i s i s S t i l l E v o l v i n g
and Health Information is Incomplete
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
1) How can health authorities best meet public demands
for critical information, such as, “What is the health
threat?” and “What do I know about it?” when the
crisis is still unfolding and not all the facts are known?
2) What benefits does monitoring trends in social media
postings confer on efforts to meet people’s information
needs during an evolving health crisis?
3) What medical and morale-boosting purposes does
sharing information about self-protective actions (eg,
infection control measures) serve for the public during
an uncertain and fear-instilling situation?
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A P OSSIBLE C URE
C HAPTER T WO
Distributed via the CDC Health Alert Network
December 15, 2025, 13:00 ET (1:00 PM ET)
CDCHAN-00528
Summary
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state health departments are investigating the
emergence of the St. Paul Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SPARS-CoV), now reported in 26
states and several other countries. The purpose of this HAN Advisory is to update public health
departments and healthcare facilities about this epidemic and to provide guidance to healthcare
providers. At this time, the FDA and NIH are evaluating potential treatment options. Evidence indicates
that antiviral pharmaceuticals may provide benefit. Based on previous trials in other coronavirus patients,
the antiviral Kalocivir is the leading candidate; however, neither the efficacy nor safety profile has been
determined for SPARS cases. Further guidance regarding personal protective equipment (PPE) and clinical
care protocols are delineated below.
Early in the SPARS pandemic, public health and medical professionals were hopeful that the outbreak
could be contained through case identification and isolation. It quickly became clear, however, that this
strategy was not as effective as initially hoped. First, challenges in identifying mild cases limited the
impact of isolation programs. Because the initial symptoms of SPARS closely resembled influenza,
many who contracted SPARS did not immediately seek care, assuming they merely had the flu.
Fortunately, some who thought they had the flu chose to isolate themselves at home, thereby prevent-
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ing the spread of SPARS outside their households. Over the Thanksgiving holiday and Black Friday,
however, fewer infected persons remained home, thereby enabling the spread of SPARS beyond the
Midwest. Second, SPARS transmission was accelerated by infectious individuals who had not yet
become symptomatic. Together, these factors led to significant spikes in the number of reported cases.
By mid-December, SPARS cases were reported in 26 states, and the Ministries of Health in Mexico,
Canada, Brazil, Japan, and several European countries had notified the WHO of dozens of imported
cases. There was widespread concern in public health circles that travel over the Christmas and New
Year’s holidays would spark a global pandemic. The WHO, which had declared the SPARS epidemic to
be a PHEIC on November 25, was actively engaged in preventing further spread of the disease
internationally. However, the WHO’s efforts promoted interventions originally designed for influenza
and other similar respiratory pathogens, such as hygiene, social distancing, and isolation of suspected
cases, all of which were less effective against SPARS.
The CDC initially followed a similar strategy. The spike in cases in November and December,
however, led to increasing public concern about the disease. By late December, public concern about
SPARS in the United States was extremely high, and there was intense public pressure to identify
treatments for the disease.
At that time, no treatment or vaccine for SPARS was approved for use in humans. The antiviral
Kalocivir, which was initially developed as a therapeutic for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
(SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), was one of several antiviral drugs authorized
in the United States by the FDA to treat a handful of severe SPARS cases under its Expanded Access
protocol. Kalocivir had shown some evidence of efficacy against other coronaviruses, and a small
inventory of the drug was already a part of the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) in anticipation of
FDA approval, despite some concerns about potential adverse side effects. The lack of concrete
information regarding potential treatments in the face of the increasingly rapid spread of SPARS
prompted demands from the media, the public, and political leaders for the FDA to be more
forthcoming with information on potential treatment options.
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COMMUNICATION DILEMMA
Responding to Public and Political Pressure to Share
Information about Potential MCMs in the
Development Pipeline Even Though Information
May be Incomplete or Proprietary
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
1) What risks do public health agencies face if the public,
media, and/or political leaders feel that information
about potential treatment options is being withheld?
2) What kinds of outreach could public health agencies
perform in advance of a crisis to mitigate any
perceived lack of transparency? If such a perception
emerges in the crisis, then how might it be defused?
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A P OTENTIAL V ACCINE
C HAPTER T HREE
GMI
TO: Gretta Smithson, Vice-President for Animal Health
FROM: Dr. Marcus Thompson, Director, Vaccination Research Branch
RE: Hooved Mammal Respiratory Virus Vaccine Number 14 (HMRV-vac14) Use in Human
Populations
DATE: December 30, 2025
ATTACHMENTS:
- HMRV-vac14 Efficacy and Side Effects
- Hoofed Mammal Respiratory Coronavirus Outbreak Model
Estimates (2021)
PROBLEM BACKGROUND
Your office requested information regarding any previous SPARS-like illness in GMI animal
populations and potential immunization or treatment implications for the ongoing SPARS
pandemic.
SUMMARY
In 2021, a coronavirus caused an outbreak in Region 7 (Southeast Asia) hoofed mammal
populations. Our researchers developed and produced in-house an effective vaccine against the
infection (HMRV-vac14). Its subsequent approval and use successfully ended the outbreak in the
region. While largely effective in preventing infection, severe side effects—including swollen legs;
severe joint pain; and encephalitis potentially resulting in seizures, seizure disorders or death—
occasionally occurred (Attachment 1). Given the millions of vaccinations required for Region 7,
this resulted in measurable losses to the animal population; however, these were acceptable
compared to those from the respiratory infection itself (Attachment 2). Each of the severe side
effects was accompanied by physical presentation such that the affected animal was removed
from the population and culled to prevent processing affected animals for sale.
It is unknown at this time how similar the two coronaviruses are or whether HMRV-vac14 (or a
similar vaccine) would be effective in human populations. Due to its development for internal use
only, HMRV-vac14 has not been tested or authorized by any governing agency for use in animals
or humans.
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CHAPTER THREE
Shortly after authorizing expanded access to Kalocivir for select patients, the FDA received reports of
an animal vaccine developed by GMI, a multinational livestock conglomerate operating cattle and pig
farms in, among other places, Southeast Asia. Since 2021, ranchers had been using the vaccine to
prevent a SPARS-like respiratory coronavirus disease in cows and pigs in the Philippines and other
Southeast Asian countries. Data provided by GMI suggested that the vaccine was effective at
preventing SPARS-like illnesses in cows, pigs, and other hooved mammals, but internal trials revealed
several worrisome side effects, including swollen legs, severe joint pain, and encephalitis leading to
seizures or death. Because any animals experiencing these side effects were immediately killed, and
because animals were typically slaughtered within a year of vaccination, further information regarding
the short- and long-term effects of the GMI vaccine was unavailable.
Lacking a viable alternative—and considering the potentially high morbidity and mortality associated
with SPARS (at the time the case fatality rate was still considered to be 4.7%)—the United States
government contacted GMI in regards to the vaccine. After laboratory tests confirmed that the
coronavirus affecting livestock in Southeast Asia was closely related to SPARS-CoV, the US began an
extensive review of GMI’s animal vaccine development and testing processes. Shortly thereafter,
federal health authorities awarded a contract to CynBio, a US-based pharmaceutical company, to
develop a SPARS vaccine based on the GMI model. The contract included requirements for safety
testing, ensuring the vaccine would be safe and effective for human use. It also provided considerable
funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and included provisions for priority review by
the FDA. Additionally, HHS Secretary Nagel agreed in principle to invoke the Public Readiness and
Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act), thereby providing liability protection for CynBio and future
vaccine providers in the event that vaccine recipients experienced any adverse effects.
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CHAPTER THREE
COMMUNICATION DILEMMA
Maintaining Trust in Government Processes for Ensuring the
Timely Development of Safe and Effective Vaccines
Wh e n N o v e l T h r e a t s A r i s e
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
1) How might federal health authorities avoid people possibly seeing
an expedited SPARS vaccine development and testing process
as somehow “rushed” and inherently flawed, even though that
process still meets the same safety and efficacy standards as any
other vaccine?
2) How might federal health authorities respond to critics who
propose that liability protection for SPARS vaccine manufacturers
jeopardizes individual freedom and wellbeing?
3) Once the vaccine becomes broadly available (see the chapter,
“Head of the Line Privileges”), how might public health
communicators implement the “best practices” principle of
enabling people to make their own informed decisions about
whether to accept the novel SPARS vaccine?
4) What are the potential consequences of health officials overreassuring the public about the potential risks of a novel SPARS
vaccine when long-term effects are not yet known?
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U SERS B EWARE
C HAPTER F OUR
Following limited evidence of success in treating SPARS patients with Kalocivir, the FDA issued an
Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for this drug as a SPARS therapeutic in the United States.
While Kalocivir had a positive impact against SPARS, preliminary data indicated it also caused intense
stomach cramping in a statistically significant number of adult cases. Additionally, while initial hopes
had been that Kalocivir would, in addition to treating the disease, prevent or reduce transmission, this
was not the case. Nevertheless, due to high public demand for access to viable SPARS treatments,
public health and healthcare agencies drew from existing SNS inventories of Kalocivir (several million
doses) until further production of the drug could begin.
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C HAPTER F OUR
Official announcements about the use of Kalocivir to treat SPARS were made in early January 2026.
Although extensive interagency efforts were made to coordinate messages, slight differences were
emphasized by the media, leading to the appearance of diverging messages. The FDA, for example,
explained that Kalocivir was being authorized under emergency use protocols as a treatment for
SPARS and recommended that healthcare providers and other interested persons review the FDAapproved drug insert, which included information about potential side effects. The CDC’s
announcement contained similar information, but when a CDC spokesperson was asked direct
questions on air, he explained the preliminary nature of the Kalocivir trials and stressed that the
efficacy of the drug against SPARS remained unknown. The NIH announcement, meanwhile, also
echoed the FDA announcement, but when the NIH spokesperson appeared on a widely viewed
interview on a popular morning news show, the interviewer focused primarily on the possible benefits
of Kalocivir for adults only.
In addition to the government agencies’ official channels of communication, messages about Kalocivir
were also distributed by national and local media organizations. Depending on the particular
government source(s) these news agencies used, their reports differed slightly. When these messages
were, in turn, shared via social media, they continued to diverge. Some individuals on social media,
citing the CDC spokesperson’s interview, claimed that Kalocivir had not been thoroughly tested and
was potentially unsafe. Others, citing parts of the CDC and NIH announcements, incorrectly claimed
that while Kalocivir was safe for adults, it was possibly unsafe for children. Yet others wondered why
the drug was not being administered preventatively to the entire US population. Because little actual
data on the safety and efficacy of Kalocivir existed at the time, government agencies had a difficult time
responding to the ever-diverging public responses on social media.
After Kalocivir was in public use for three months, the FDA was able to release updated information
about the drug’s effectiveness and the incidence of side effects. This information came too late,
however, for large portions of the general public. In Wisconsin, where many individuals were treated
with Kalocivir, local citizens posted, Tweeted, chatted, and Zapped real-time impressions of the drug.
While some claimed the drug was effective and even life-saving, most reported no effect and claimed
that the drug had caused additional side effects, such as headaches, nausea, and body aches. The social
media reports of these side effects were so ubiquitous in the Milwaukee area that local news reporters
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openly questioned the FDA’s updated safety information, with one reporter even asking live on air if
the FDA even knew what side effects were. In Lawrence, Kansas, on the other hand, local media—
again using social media responses as a source—focused on how successful Kalocivir was at treating
SPARS.
By late January 2026, the WHO reported sustained transmission of SPARS in 42 countries across the
globe. The disease proved to be particularly devastating in low-income countries where weak health
systems, malnourishment, and co-infections greatly exacerbated the impacts of SPARS. In the United
States, the situation was much less dire, but public concern about SPARS remained high. This anxiety
resulted in extensive use of Kalocivir across the country and led many citizens to actively seek out
medical attention for even minor SPARS-like symptoms. Though taxing for local hospitals and clinics,
increased self-reporting of SPARS-like symptoms provided data that clarified certain epidemiological
features of the disease. The CDC published analyses of this data, which indicated a much lower case
fatality rate of 1.1%, compared to the initial 4.7% estimate. While this information was a relief to public
health officials, it did little to quell public concern.
In addition, not all members of the public responded to the SPARS in the same way. Small groups of
individuals spread throughout the country, for example, who felt that natural cures such as garlic and
vitamins would be more effective at treating SPARS than an “untested” drug, were much less likely to
accept Kalocivir as a treatment option or even seek medical attention for SPARS-like symptoms.
Similarly, some ethnic minorities, and particularly ethnic groups who lived close together in large,
tight-knit communities, also rejected Kalocivir.
Some of this resistance—particularly among select ethnic minority groups—was attributable to
questionable messaging on the part of public health agencies. While news reports and press releases
were provided in multiple languages, not all of the messages were culturally appropriate for the
populations receiving them. One of the best examples of this occurred among the Navajo tribe in the
southwestern United States.
In early February 2026, the newly instated director of the Navajo Area Indian Health Service (NAIHS)
took messaging provided by the CDC and modified this so it was more fear-based. His methods
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included taking the tagline from a CDC message — “See your health care provider if you experience
SPARS-like symptoms”—and adding the phrase “SPARS can kill you” at the end. While the intent of
the director was to increase the number of Navajo seeking treatment for SPARS, the modified message,
which was widely distributed throughout tribal areas, backfired. Fewer Navajo came forward in the
following weeks for treatment from the NAIHS for SPARS-like symptoms. Sensing a mistake had been
made, the director reached out to tribal leadership. After intensive dialog the messaging of the NAIHS
was changed to reflect Navajo beliefs in sustaining life and eschewing a focus on death. Specifically, the
fear-based messaging was replaced with positive messages including “Seeing health care providers for
SPARS-like symptoms can help you and your family members live long and happy lives.”
Due to the variation in local responses to Kalocivir and persisting anxiety around the outbreak itself,
local public health agencies actively tried to address controversies and coordinate public health
outreach with local populations. While many of these local public health outreach efforts successfully
increased compliance with recommended health actions, they were not effective at reaching some
special interest groups, including the growing national anti-Kalocivir/natural medicine movement,
which was dispersed across the country and not concentrated in local areas.
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COMMUNICATION DILEMMA
Harmonizing Inconsistent Messaging Across Health Agencies
Appropriately Tailoring Public Health Messages to Address
the Concerns and Cultures of Specific Communities
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
1) How could pre-crisis partnerships and alliances have averted the
potential for inconsistent messaging around Kalocivir safety and
efficacy? What are the potential effects of unaligned official
messages about MCM safety and efficacy?
2) How could social media have been used to supplement
traditional methods of collecting data about Kalocivir’s
effectiveness and side effects?
3) What is the difference between word-for-word translation and
culturally competent MCM messages? What are the potential
social and public health impacts of failures to deliver culturally
competent MCM guidance?
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G OING V IRAL
C HAPTER F IVE
Reports of negative side effects associated with Kalocivir began gaining traction in February 2026.
Despite the negative response, public health agencies continued to make progress until February,
when a video of a three-year-old boy in North Carolina — who was hospitalized with SPARS and
began projectile vomiting immediately after taking a dose of Kalocivir — went viral. In the video clip,
the boy’s physician administers a pediatric dose of liquid Kalocivir; a few moments later, the boy begins
vomiting profusely, chokes, and then faints while his mother shrieks in the background.
This clip was widely shared across the United States with a variety of captions including #NoKalocivir
and #NaturalIsBetter. The hashtags, in turn, provided a way for people sharing these views to find one
another and band together on social media. They formed ZapQ and other online discussion groups,
which allowed them to receive any messages from group members via smart phones and internet
accessing technology (IAT) instantaneously as they were posted. Some members of these ZapQ groups
even began to use full-sized (12”x12”) IAT screens on backs of their jackets, coats, and backpacks to
loop the vomiting video for all in their immediate vicinity to see.
The social media groundswell quickly overwhelmed the capacity of local, state, and federal agencies to
respond, and compliance with public health and medical recommendations dropped considerably. The
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FDA and other government agencies quickly attempted to remind the public that correlation does not
equate to causation, and that vomiting was not a known side effect of Kalocivir. This message, while
scientifically accurate, lacked appropriate empathy and failed to assuage the public’s mounting fears. As
a result, it was largely ignored, and public concern continued to grow.
In the following weeks, officials from the FDA,
CDC, and other government organizations
attempted to promote positive, accurate
information about Kalocivir on several
traditional and social media platforms in order
to quell public fear. This messaging, however,
was less than optimal both in terms of timing
and dissemination. While the government took
several days to provide an emotionally appropriate message, the spread of the viral video on social
media was exponentially faster. By the time the government responded, most people across the
country had already seen the vomiting video and formed their own conclusions. Additionally, in their
responses, governmental organizations were not able to effectively access all social media platforms.
ZapQ groups, for example, had closed memberships and typically could only be accessed via invitations
from group members.
Both of these issues prompted government organizations to improve the timing and impact of their
social media responses. While most government agencies including the CDC and HHS had longestablished offices that were directed to coordinate social media and other communication efforts, the
protocols of individual agencies and different agency cultures led to delayed and sometimes
uncoordinated messages. Compounding this situation was the social media outreach conducted by
individual members of the government. Several members of Congress were very active on sites like
Twitter where they could leverage their office to spread their own personal beliefs under the guise of
public positions.
In late May, one of these individuals, a former doctor and current Senator from Iowa, responded to a
second vomiting video by tweeting, “Don’t be buffoons! Kalocivir is 100% safe and 100% effective.
Correlation does NOT equal Causation!” After being shared tens of thousands of times, the tweet was
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C HAPTER F IVE
picked up by traditional media outlets. This led to multiple awkward news interviews with FDA and
CDC officials who had to clarify that while the sentiment of the message was correct, Kalocivir did
have potential side effects and was not completely effective at treating SPARS.
Despite the many outreach efforts by various government officials and entities, the government was
ultimately unable to develop a suitable response to the initial vomiting video. By early June 2026, the
video had become the most shared Zap clip among junior high and high school students across the
country who appreciated the shock factor of the video. As a result, the public was continually reexposed to the anti-Kalocivir message for several months after the initial incident and subsequent
responses.
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C HAPTER F IVE
COMMUNICATION DILEMMA
Responding to the Power of
Graphic Images of a Child in Distress:
One Story is Elevated to a Population -Level Problem
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
1) Why might communicating the science around MCM adverse
effects alone not be enough to address the public’s fears and
concerns about a MCM like Kalocivir? Why is it also important to
communicate with compassion, concern, and empathy?
2) To what extent is having sufficiently skilled staff and organizational
capacity to communicate via traditional media and social media
platforms critical to influencing public debates and awareness
about a MCM like Kalocivir?
3) What MCM communication challenges and opportunities are
likely to emerge among up-and-coming youth audiences who
are avid consumers of interactive and visual forms of information?
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T HE G RASS IS A LWAYS G REENER
C HAPTER S IX
As confidence in Kalocivir continued to deteriorate across the United States, the United Kingdom and
the European Union jointly announced authorization for another antiviral treatment. In early March
2026, the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency and the European Medicines
Agency authorized the emergency use of a new antiviral, VMax, to treat SPARS. VMax had been
considered in the United States, but a drug trial conducted at the beginning of the SPARS outbreak did
not show evidence of efficacy. Despite the authorization and promotion of VMax in Europe, the FDA,
CDC and other US governmental agencies opted to focus their efforts on supplying and distributing
Kalocivir and developing a vaccine based on the GMI model.
Social media posts from the United Kingdom and
several European countries alerted many individuals in
the United States to the existence and purported
benefits of VMax. The authorization announcement was
also distributed via all major American media outlets
and quickly spread via social media.
As Europeans began receiving VMax, they reported their outcomes, good and bad, on a
number of social media platforms. This persistent social media buzz around the pandemic ensured that
public anxiety remained high — even though the incidence of new SPARS cases had begun to taper off.
While the efficacy and side effect posts regarding VMax were largely similar to those for Kalocivir in
the United States, some Americans sought to order prescriptions of VMax online, and others traveled
to Europe to obtain the drug.
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C HAPTER S IX
COMMUNICATION DILEMMA
Responding to Demand for an Alternative Drug
Not Available in the United States
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
1) How might pre-tested messages comparing US and foreign MCM
review processes have enabled the US FDA and US CDC to
support the USG decision to promote Kalocivir as the antiviral of
choice?
2) What responsibility, if any, does the FDA have to advise
Americans to avoid using VMax? How can the FDA and other
public health entities best support the public when making
informed MCM choices to protect their health?
4) How should local public health and healthcare providers address
patients’ questions about the risks and benefits of foreign MCMs?
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T HE V OICE
C HAPTER S EVEN
By May 2026, public interest in SPARS had begun to wane. In late April the CDC had publicized an
updated case fatality rate estimate, suggesting the SPARS was only fatal in 0.6% of cases in the United
States (where access to medical treatment was available). This figure matched public sentiment, widely
expressed on social media, that SPARS was not as dangerous as initially thought. Combined with
persisting doubts about Kalocivir and the lack of a commercially available SPARS vaccine, the new,
lower case fatality rate estimate led the public to grow increasingly hostile toward continued SPARS
messaging.
In order to overcome the public’s disinterest, the CDC and FDA, in concert with other government
agencies and their social media experts, began developing a new public health messaging campaign
about SPARS, Kalocivir, and the forthcoming vaccine, Corovax. The purpose of this campaign was to
create a core set of messages that could be shared by all public health and government agencies over
the next several months during which time the SPARS vaccine would be introduced. Even though the
disease was less fatal than initially thought, it remained expensive to treat in its severe form and even
mild cases had substantial impacts on economic productivity across the country.
In late May, three messages were approved by the cross-agency committee established to produce the
messaging campaign: one addressing the nature and risks of SPARS, one regarding the effectiveness of
Kalocivir, and one about the anticipated release of Corovax. These messages were broadly shared via
all relevant government agencies’ internet and social media accounts. In an effort to further reach
certain population subgroups, agency officials enlisted the help of well-known scientists, celebrities,
and government officials to make short videos and Zap clips and, in a few cases, give interviews to
major media outlets. Among those chosen were former President Jaclyn Bennett; BZee, a popular hip-
hop star; and Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners in Health and a renowned global health expert.
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C HAPTER S EVEN
The campaign produced mixed results. Common messaging did reduce public confusion, evinced by a
15-23% increase in the public’s correct understanding of SPARS and Kalocivir in national polls. While
common messaging resulted in more cohesive traditional media coverage, the celebrity outreach
campaign was more problematic.
BZee’s original Zap clip was widely shared, particularly
among African American and urban populations; however,
in an interview aired on Access Hollywood during which
he was asked about the accelerated clinical trials for
Corovax, BZee noted his admiration for those who
volunteered to participate in the trials, and then compared
these recent volunteers to volunteers in previous healthrelated studies “including the men who volunteered at
Tuskegee.” The resulting backlash, particularly from
African Americans, undermined the effectiveness of BZee’s
efforts.
Not long after, 60 Minutes aired a live, nationally
broadcast interview with former President Bennett. When
asked if she would want her new grandson to receive
Kalocivir, Bennett, caught off-guard, paused and
eventually gave a hesitant, somewhat contradictory
response: “Well, I – experts say the drug is safe. And it’s
not easy, but I think…Everyone should make the decision
that’s best for their family.” Video clips from this
interview were shared widely on social media and by
traditional media outlets, leading many healthcare
professionals and members of the public to criticize
Bennett for not taking a strong stance in support of
Kalocivir.
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The aftermath of the interview, however, did galvanize many House and Senate Republicans to
support Kalocivir use in earnest in an effort to demonstrate their opposition to from the former
Democratic President.
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C HAPTER S EVEN
COMMUNICATION DILEMMA
Responding to Misinformation or Doubt about an
MCM Generated by a Prominent Public Figure
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Given the ability of powerful, popular figures to reinforce or to
undermine public health messages, what steps might health
authorities—at either national or local levels—take to reverse the
negative effects of BZee’s unintended linkage of Tuskegee and
Corovax, or Bennett’s tepid, uncertain support for Kalocivir?
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A RE Y OU T ALKING TO M E ?
C HAPTER E IGHT
While government agencies were spreading the newly tooled public health messages about SPARS,
Kalocivir, and Corovax through a variety of traditional and social media outlets, several popular
platforms were overlooked. A notable example was UNEQL, a social media interface used at the time
almost exclusively by college students. UNEQL was designed and first used at the University of
California Berkeley in 2023. The initial purpose of the interface was to provide undergraduate college
students with a common forum to collectively critique local, national, and international social and
economic policies such as anti-immigration laws and drug policies. By 2026, the interface still
maintained a critical focus but had expanded to include an underground news reporting system, led by
seven primary “reporters” across the country; a satirical news feed that could be streamed as a caption
on any program running on IAT; and special interest message boards accessible to anyone. While
UNEQL was the primary news source of many college students on the east and west coasts, its
existence and particularly its prominence was largely unknown outside of college communities and
completely ignored by most public health agencies.
The SPARS pandemic and concerns about the disease prompted a sizeable response on UNEQL. While
information shared about SPARS closely followed the information provided by the CDC, FDA, and
other agencies, information about Kalocivir was often incorrect. Multiple message board threads
questioned, in detail, the accelerated clinical trial process; others examined alternative treatments for
SPARS, including VMax; and the second most popular “reporter,” StanfordGY, led discussions on and
organized protests against how Kalocivir was being administered, particularly focusing on how a lack
of access to primary care could result in unequal access to the drug. By late May, opinion polls on
UNEQL showed that 68 percent of the interface’s two million users felt that equal access to medical
care for SPARS was a serious issue. In an effort to galvanize political will around this issue, students
began using UNEQL forums to organize and promote protests outside the offices of state and local
political leaders.
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C HAPTER EIGHT
COMMUNICATION DILEMMA
Overlooking Communication Platforms Used by Specific
Groups; Quickly Gaining Fluency and Effectively Engaging the
Public Using a New Media Platform
Responding to Public Criticism About
Potential Unequal Access to MCMs Like Kalocivir
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
1) What are the roles of a media-literate staff and organizational
capacity to communicate via both social and traditional media
platforms critical to understanding and influencing public
debates about an MCM like Kalocivir?
2) Why is it important to listen to the public during the emergency to
find out what they think or want done about equity in access to a
MCM like Kalocivir? How might the public’s desire for fairness in
allocating Kalocivir ultimately influence public health outcomes?
3) How could authorities—at national and local levels—craft an
effective response to public criticism and concern about unequal
access to Kalocivir? How might the emergency communication
principles of speaking honestly and openly and acknowledging
the human dimension of the problem be applied in this instance?
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C HANGING H ORSES M IDSTREAM
C HAPTER N INE
In mid-June 2026, Laso Therapeutics, the sponsor for Kalocivir’s clinical trials, released data from a
large randomized controlled trial (RCT). The new data suggested that Kalocivir was less effective at
treating SPARS than initially thought and was, in fact, on par with Ribavirin and VMax, both of which
showed low efficacy as SPARS treatments. These results led the FDA to conclude that all currently
available drugs were only minimally effective at treating SPARS. In response, the CDC suggested that
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healthcare providers continue to provide palliative care to SPARS patients and that, if necessary,
patients with more mild cases could use over-the-counter medications to alleviate symptoms.
Ultimately, this left providers to address patient concerns and demands on their own, which proved
frustrating for them and many of their patients.
On a positive note, however, the new data also suggested that the side effects associated with Kalocivir
were milder than initially reported. Among adults and children receiving pediatric does, only mild
stomach irritation was now associated with Kalocivir use.
Immediately following the release of the RCT data, current US President Archer, HHS Secretary
Nagel, officials from other government organizations, and scientists across the country publicly
praised the FDA and CDC for their responses and updated guidelines. The response on social media,
however, was largely negative. Citing the vomiting video, reports about VMax from Europe, and the
communication blunders made by President Bennett and BZee, citizens across the country took to
Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Vine, and ZapQ to assert that the changing messages merely proved that
scientists knew very little about how to deal with SPARS. Common social media messages shared
during this time included #FakeScience and #GoNatural. The response was particularly vitriolic from
the burgeoning natural medicine movement.
This negative response, in turn, was covered extensively by traditional media sources. The Los
Angeles Tribune, for example, ran a front-page editorial responding to local social media posts that
questioned the government’s response to SPARS in light of the new revelations about Kalocivir. The
editorial accused the government of shoddy science and wasting tens of millions of dollars to advertise
and supply an ineffective treatment. It ended by questioning the government’s other SPARS-related
endeavors, particularly the production and promotion of Corovax. The resulting media storm was
especially problematic, as Corovax was due to be released in the coming weeks.
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C HAPTER N INE
COMMUNICATION DILEMMA
Maintaining Public Support After Changing Positions
on MCM Safety and Efficacy
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
1) In the time leading up to the newly revealed data about antiviral
safety and efficacy, how might health communicators have
better prepared the public for uncertainty and fluidity of crisis
response and the need to act in the absence of complete
information?
2) In light of waning public confidence in official statements about
antiviral risks and benefits, how should health authorities best lay
the groundwork for the release of the novel Corovax vaccine?
3) How can health authorities reestablish public confidence in MCM
recommendations while also speaking truthfully about the state of
knowledge about Corovax’s safety and efficacy profile?
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H EAD OF THE L INE P RIVILEGES
C HAPTER T EN
In late June 2026, Corovax entered the final stage of its expedited review in the United States. After
passing FDA safety reviews, production of the completed vaccine had begun and was on schedule. Ten
million doses were expected to be available by mid-July, with another twenty million doses due by the
end of August. With SPARS continuing to spread both within the United States and around the world,
demand for a vaccine was still moderately high in spite of recent social media debacles, and every effort
was made to increase domestic production capacity. Given the demonstrated morbidity and mortality
of SPARS, and in anticipation of initial vaccine shortages, the CDC Advisory Committee on
Immunization Practice (ACIP) identified the following priority groups for immunization: children aged
1-18, young adults 19-22 with chronic respiratory conditions, and pregnant women.
This plan was met with skepticism among certain groups. Doctors and nurses, for example, expressed
concerns that they were not included as a priority group. In Milwaukee, healthcare providers even
protested their lack of inclusion by refusing to report for work, which, in turn, prompted the
Wisconsin Department of Health Services to promise that healthcare providers would be vaccinated as
soon as more vaccine became available. In Republican ZapQ groups across the rest of the state,
however, these protests and particularly the response from the Wisconsin Department of Health were
widely reported across social media platforms as yet another example of liberal politics at work,
regardless of the absence of politics or the actual content of the policy. Many Wisconsinite Republicans
subsequently stopped following the news feeds and Twitter accounts of their state and local public
health departments.
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CHAPTER TEN
Other groups harboring concerns about ACIP’s vaccine prioritization plan included parents of children
under the age of one, adults over the age of 22 with chronic medical conditions, and people across the
country who opposed vaccination generally. During the initial stages of the SPARS vaccine campaign,
all of these groups (with the exception of the anti-vaccinators) were sparsely organized and had limited
contact with one another, reducing the need for any type of formal response from the public health
community.
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CHAPTER TEN
COMMUNICATION DILEMMA
Communicating the Need for and Reasoning Behind the
Prioritization of Scarce Resources
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
1) When responding to public concerns about priority access to
scarce supplies of the Corovax vaccine, what solutions might
result from authorities putting themselves in the place of outraged
groups? How might authorities then adapt their messages?
2) How might health authorities balance scientific explanations for
the allocation framework with a humanistic acknowledgement of
the public’s distress at them or their family being left out of the
initial vaccine priority groups?
3) How can health authorities best set public expectations about
the fluidity of priority groups, as determined by the nature of the
outbreak, the vaccine supply, and the emergence of new
knowledge about risks and benefits?
4) How might timely outreach to, and potential partnerships with,
intermediary organizations such as healthcare professional
societies figure into strategies to address the outrage of lower
priority vaccination groups?
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The SPARS Pandemic
S TANDING IN L INE , P ROTESTING O NLINE
C HAPTER E LEVEN
To determine how to best distribute limited doses of Corovax to members of priority groups across the
country, the US government resorted to new, controversial tactics; notably, having healthcare
providers access patients’ electronic health records (EHRs) to determine the number of individuals in
high-risk populations receiving care in particular areas. Due to widespread increases in EHR use since
2020, this method proved to be highly effective, enabling providers to quickly tabulate the number of
pregnant women and young adults 19-22 with chronic respiratory conditions. In some communities,
like Los Angeles County, California, this method also identified neighborhoods with limited access to
primary care. Based on this data, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health began
intensive public vaccination campaigns in those areas.
The use of EHRs was not without controversy, however. Some US citizens were upset because they
believed the federal government was accessing private patient data. This stemmed from a
misunderstanding on the citizens’ part: the federal government was not accessing patients’ EHRs
directly, but rather was relying on healthcare organizations and providers to access patients’ EHR and
then report summary information (specifically, the number of people in the targeted groups) to the
CDC, FDA, and other government agencies. The US government attempted to rectify this
misunderstanding by posting, tweeting, and Zapping short statements and videos explaining the
vaccine distribution process. These messages successfully reached citizens who subscribed to
government news feeds or relied on traditional media coverage based on government sources.
Critically, however, these messages failed to reach a small but growing segment of the US population
obtaining information about SPARS and SPARS treatments from other, non-government sources.
During early stages of the US vaccination campaign, social media also played a key role in vaccine
distribution. In communities like Austin, Texas, Facebook Live, Snapchat, Twitter, and ZapQ helped
alert members of the public when vaccine dispensing was occurring. In many cases, this led to rapid
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C HAPTER E LEVEN
local responses that improved overall vaccine coverage. In some cases, however, it resulted in vaccine
points of dispensing (PODs)—such as individual healthcare offices and schools—being overwhelmed,
particularly with the 2026 flu season drawing closer. In Phoenix, for example, a social media campaign
promoting vaccine dispensing at a closed POD (ie, not open to the public) serving a local elementary
school resulted in more than two thousand parents and their children not affiliated with the school
arriving at the POD and expecting to receive immunizations. The parents were informed that the
POD was open only to children attending the school and were directed to obtain vaccinations for their
children from their healthcare providers or a POD open to the general public. Events like this were
widely covered by local and state media as well as by local social media. In some instances, like the case
described above, the perceived lack of access to vaccines led some eligible individuals to give up
seeking vaccinations altogether.
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C HAPTER E LEVEN
COMMUNICATION DILEMMA
Publicizing MCM Programs and Availability
to Promote Uptake and Efficient Distribution
Providing Real -Time Data on Vaccine Availability to Align
MCM Supply with Public Demand
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
1) Why is active monitoring of the “information sea” in which the
public is swimming critical to the efforts of authorities to create
conditions and provide information that support recommended
public health behaviors?
2) How might a strong social media presence allow the federal
government—and public health officials more broadly—to
anticipate potential communication issues (eg, privacy concerns
over using EHR data to direct vaccination efforts) before they
become full-fledged crises?
4) Given the growing trend of people building their own “situational
awareness” of an event via social media (eg, tracking vaccine
availability), how might health authorities capitalize on this
collective information-gathering and -sharing behaviors to
enhance public understanding of MCM availability and improve
access to life-saving MCMs?
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D ON ’ T P UT A LL Y OUR E GGS IN O NE B ASKET
C HAPTER T WELVE
I M P O R T A N T H E A LT H A D V I S O R Y !
Grant County Health District and Okanogan County Public Health will provide
COROVAX for the general public from 8 AM – 7 PM this Saturday, July 18
at their local offices (see below).
G E T V A C C I N A T E D A G A I N S T S PA R S !
On July 9, 2026, a week before Corovax was released for distribution in the United States, the power
grid at the Grand Coulee Dam in eastern Washington State experienced a catastrophic failure. While
the event did not destroy any infrastructure or result in any deaths, it did cause widespread power
outages in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia. Though power was restored
within a day of the initial outage, blackouts continued plaguing these areas over the next three weeks.
Because summer temperatures in this region are typically moderate and adequate numbers of
emergency generators existed for hospitals and other public facilities, there were no significant public
health concerns associated with the event. Unfortunately, all communication about the vaccine rollout
was published in electronic form, and consequently, many individuals in the affected areas were
initially unable to access information provided by state, local, or federal health authorities regarding
Corovax dispensing.
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C HAPTER T WELVE
State and local public health officials scrambled to hand-deliver fliers, printed and copied at local
Emergency Operations Centers using backup generators, to explain vaccine prioritization and POD
information. This extremely time-consuming effort exhausted a public health workforce already
stretched thin by the epidemic response and several years of budget cuts, but it was ultimately
successful. Early vaccination rates in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho were very similar to other states
and in some cases above average. In spite of this success, the incident underscored the shortcomings
associated with relying solely on electronic communications strategies.
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C HAPTER T WELVE
COMMUNICATION DILEMMA
Maintaining Consistent Messaging Across Electronic and
Non-Electronic Media, and Implementing a Secondary
Communication Plan if Electronic Media are Not Available
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
1) While greater use of electronic media opens new opportunities
for broad outreach, what communication vulnerabilities exist that
could impede communication efforts via electronic media?
2) How might local, state, and federal health officials be prepared
for the unique vulnerabilities of electronic forms of MCM
emergency communication?
3) How can public health communicators remain flexible when
multiple disasters occur at once?
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L OVERS AND H ATERS
C HAPTER T HIRTEEN
Early on in the Corovax vaccination campaign, anti-vaccination groups began emerging on social
media platforms. These groups initially came from four primary sources: Muslim groups across the
country, who opposed the vaccine on the basis that the original formulation was used to treat pigs;
African Americans, who refused vaccination based on continued fear of governmental experimentation
on African American populations; alternative medicine proponents, who had also been active in
campaigning against Kalocivir; and anti-vaccination activists, who were galvanized by the anti-antivaccination sentiment associated with the nationwide measles outbreak in 2015.
With the exception of this last group, none of the anti-vaccination movements were cohesively
organized initially, existing primarily in small, isolated pockets across the country. The general antivaccination proponents, however, existed as a core, national group long before the SPARS pandemic.
Following the 2015 measles outbreak in the United States, this group united online. By 2016, they had
created several primary Facebook groups and numerous Twitter accounts and began using hashtags
like #NoVaccines4Me and #VaccinesKill. The anti-vaccination movement migrated to ZapQ upon its
emergence in 2022 due to its ability to combine feeds from across multiple platforms, including realtime text, picture, and video messages from members as well as select traditional media posts such as
videos, texts, or streaming news feeds on a single interface that could be used on IAT and other mobile
platforms. Additionally, through their ability to control group membership, these groups ensured that
they would not be exposed to pro-vaccine “propaganda” from pharmaceutical companies, the federal
government, or public health or medical authorities. By 2026, many core members of the anti-vaccine
movement obtained their national news almost exclusively from anti-vaccine ZapQ sites.
When Corovax distribution began, the anti-vaccination movement mobilized their resources. Citing
select quotes from the CDC, NIH, and other government agencies, anti-vaccine proponents began
spreading the message that Corovax was inadequately tested and had unknown, long-term side effects
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C HAPTER THIRTEEN
and that natural immunity resulting from contracting the disease was a more effective means of
conferring protection. Many of these messages also contained suggestions (once again drawing on
carefully selected and edited quotes from CDC, NIH, and other government officials) regarding how to
manage SPARS symptoms. The anti- vaccination movement’s ubiquity, motivation to prevent vaccine
injury, and social media expertise meant that numerous Americans heard their message. National polls
conducted in mid-August 2026, for example, showed that 68% of US citizens had seen a post or read a
comment from someone expressing anti-Corovax sentiments.
Concern about Corovax among
American Muslims was also
common, in particular Muslim
immigrants to the United States.
These concerns stemmed from early
traditional media reports on
Corovax that explained how the
vaccine was a derivative of the GMI
vaccine used to treat cows and pigs
in Southeast Asia. After reading and viewing these reports, several local Muslim leaders mistakenly
conflated the origin of the virus with the origin of the vaccine and concluded that the vaccine itself was
unclean. As such, they viewed receiving the vaccine as a violation of their faith. By posting their
conclusions on social media, their views quickly spread beyond their local communities, and rumors
began among Muslims across the country that the vaccine was forbidden.
When federal public health officials became aware of the opposition from Muslim communities, they
organized a press conference, hosted by HHS Secretary Nagel to address these misperceptions. In this
press conference, Secretary Nagel explained that Corovax was designed specifically for humans and
not for pigs. She invited Imam Omar Khalifa, a prominent imam in the Washington, DC area, to speak
at the press conference and he reiterated the Secretary’s points. He also called on his fellow Muslims to
embrace SPARS vaccination. Assuming that this press conference, which was widely publicized and
shared would effectively assuage the concerns of American Muslims, the US government continued
with its existing vaccination promotional campaign. In contrast to most Christian religions, however,
the Muslim faith is not at all centralized, and the statements of an imam from Washington, DC held
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C HAPTER THIRTEEN
little validity for many local Muslim communities. The influence of local imams continued to
perpetuate anti-Corovax sentiments among many local Muslim communities well into the national
vaccination campaign. Consequently, vaccination rates among Muslims generally lagged behind those
of other demographic groups in the United States.
Despite the failure of these federal initiatives, some local public health departments were able to
effectively address concerns of local Muslim populations. In King County, Washington, for example,
local public health officials became aware of the concerns of the local Somali Muslim population in
early August. Acknowledging the authority held by local imams, these officials held community
meetings with local Somali leaders to engage the local community and posted culturally relevant
information on a website specifically designed for their Somali Muslim constituents. By enlisting the
support of local Muslim leadership, these efforts ultimately led to high levels of Corovax acceptance
among Somali Muslims in King County.
Not all local or state public health departments, however, took this approach. Some were unaware of
the concerns of this particular subpopulation, and others felt that resources should be more
appropriately allocated elsewhere. The fact that websites like the one posted by Seattle King County
Public Health were publicly available, however, meant that Muslim populations in other areas of the
country had access to them. In Denton, Ohio, for example, local Senegalese Muslim immigrants began
sharing the link to the King County webpage. This, in turn, helped increase Muslims’ acceptance of
Corovax in this area, although it also diminished their confidence and trust in local public health
officials, who had not conducted targeted outreach to their community.
The concerns of African Americans were very different. Distrust of new treatments, including
vaccines, was not a new phenomenon among African American communities. The legacy of the
Tuskegee syphilis experiments and the fact that during the 2014 Ebola outbreak, experimental
therapeutics were not made available to Thomas Eric Duncan (a Liberian traveler who had died of
Ebola in Dallas, Texas), nor to many West African communities struck by Ebola, meant that many
African Americans — particularly those living in communities consuming media through local,
traditional media platforms — feared the possibility of being subjected to scientific experimentation.
These fears worsened during healthcare providers’ analysis of EHRs in Los Angeles County, which
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identified many African American communities (as well as other minority populations) as lacking
access to primary care. In some areas, aggressive public health vaccination campaigns were locally
interpreted as direct examples of experimentation. Repurposing hashtags like #BlackLivesMatter, some
African Americans in these communities began to actively campaign against Corovax.
Through August 2026, anti-vaccinators, Muslims, and African Americans remained largely isolated
from one another. By early September, however, continued anger over EHR use and growing concern
over Corovax’s side effects spurred these once-disparate groups to join forces with the alternative
medicine proponents still campaigning against Kalocivir. Uniting their efforts, these groups began
sharing common anti-vaccine messages through a variety of social media channels including Facebook,
Tumblr, Snapchat, YouTube, and ZapQ forums, as well as local radio announcements. Some antivaccine groups also began crowdsourcing information about vaccine distribution sites to stage local
anti-vaccination protests. These protests, along with the anti-vaccine messages shared by the supergroup, subsequently received wide, national coverage through traditional media outlets, including local
and national television news channels.
While the US government attempted to respond to claims raised by the anti-vaccination super-group,
their messages did not reach many members of the anti-vaccination groups because they had already
tailored their social media and news feeds to reflect only the opinions of those with whom they agreed.
On the other hand, the government messages were effective among some segments of the general US
population who had not limited their news feeds, and more importantly, they served to galvanize a
burgeoning pro-vaccination campaign.
During the measles outbreak of 2015, pro-vaccination groups like Mothers Against Vaccine Waivers
emerged across the United States. With a few exceptions, these groups lost all momentum by 2018.
Furthermore, activity among the groups that remained active was limited to a few, underused social
media sites and semi-popular hashtags such as #GetVax, #VaccinesWork, and #Vaccinate. With the
advent of Corovax, the pro-vaccination movement found renewed purpose. By the time Corovax
distribution began in July 2026, it was clear that not only did SPARS infect children more frequently
and severely, but even mild cases of the disease often gave rise to secondary bacterial pneumonia in
children. These infections often occurred between four and six months after initial infection with
SPARS, resulting in greater rates of pediatric morbidity and mortality from the disease.
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Concern about SPARS was quite high among
many parents of young children, and when antivaccination campaigns began threatening vaccine
uptake, some of these parents began to mobilize.
Parents who were once active in the provaccination campaigns of 2015 began repurposing
communication channels developed at that time,
including Facebook pages and Twitter accounts.
New local groups also began to organize on ZapQ, Snapchat, and other social media outlets.
Ultimately, by November 2026, many of these groups coalesced to form a semi-cohesive national group
that attempted to counter the efforts of the super-anti-vaccination group.
HHS, including the CDC and FDA, and other government agencies at the federal, state, and local
levels also renewed messaging efforts in support of Corovax. The common message developed about
Corovax originally used in early June was re-released, and two additional messages were developed
and distributed by mid-October, just before the vaccine was made available to the entire US
population. Paul Farmer, the renowned global health expert, provided the dialogue for the first of
these, wherein he lauded the safety and efficacy of Corovax and underscored the dangers of SPARS.
His only regret, he said, was that the vaccine could not yet be made available to everyone on the
planet. In the second message, former President Bennett redeemed herself by televising her
vaccination as well as the vaccination of two of her granddaughters.
These pro-vaccination efforts were largely successful, and vaccination rates in many areas of the
country began to climb through December 2026. The population with the highest vaccination rates in
the United States, however, did not participate in this pro-vaccination rhetoric. Filipino-Americans and
Filipino immigrants living in the United States—the groups most closely associated with SPARS in
the news media, and at least in some circles the group often blamed for the spread of SPARS—had
near-perfect vaccination rates. Though Filipinos across the United States demonstrated great
solidarity throughout the SPARS pandemic, their potential as a source of pro-vaccination rhetoric
remained largely untapped.
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COMMUNICATION DILEMMA
Addressing Multiple, Independent
MCM Concerns Simultaneously
M e e t i n g t h e I n f o r m a t i o n N e e d s o f C i t i z e n s Wh o C o m e
from Diverse Cultural, Social, and Demographic
Backgrounds, and May Have Varying Degrees of Trust
in Health Authorities
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
1) What are the respective roles and responsibilities of local, state,
and federal health authorities before and during a MCM
campaign to understand different audience segments and to
develop messages that address their concerns?
2) What communication strategies might be effective for breaking
into, and engaging with otherwise self-isolating groups who
oppose a recommended MCM like Corovax and might be
placing themselves and others at risk during the outbreak?
3) What kinds of pre-crisis partnerships and alliances with
intermediary groups and/or opinion leaders might have helped to
reduce the likelihood and mitigate the impact of anti-Corovax
sentiments among specific minority groups?
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T HE G RASS IS A LWAYS G REENER , P ART II
C HAPTER F OURTEEN
In September 2026, two months after the first batches of Corovax were released in the United States,
Japan announced that it would not approve the vaccine for use in Japan due to concerns that it had not
been vetted properly through full clinical trials. Preliminary Corovax trials conducted in Japan had
shown that the vaccine was effective at preventing SPARS and that the incidence of immediate side
effects was minimal; however, significant concerns remained about the possibility of chronic, long-term
side effects based on data from the original GMI vaccine. As an alternative, the Japanese government
stated that it would continue the development of an alternative SPARS vaccine, which they expected to
become available in early 2027.
Japan’s refusal to accept Corovax was widely covered in the international media. The decision was
particularly controversial because of widespread SPARS transmission across Japan. The fact that the
Japanese government was willing to wait six or more months for another vaccine to be developed was
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also especially concerning to the US public. Compounding this concern was the general lack of a
response to the Japanese decision from the US government. Although HHS Secretary Nagel released a
short statement reiterating the safety of Corovax, the CDC, FDA, and other government agencies did
not respond at all, a reflection of a longstanding tradition of not commenting on other countries’
internal public health decisions. From the public’s viewpoint, however, the lack of a response from
trusted government agencies only exacerbated vaccine fears.
The growing anti-vaccination super-group in the US also used the Japanese government’s decision as
further evidence that Corovax was harmful and should be avoided. In September and early October
2026, the group continually posted video clips of Japanese news conferences and translations of
Japanese reports on Corovax through their social media channels. Additionally, the group hosted realtime, public conversations with the scientists in charge of running clinical trials of Corovax in Japan.
Clips from these conversations were subsequently shared through an aggressive IAT campaign in
which anti-vaccine proponents streamed the clips on jackets, bags and other IAT devices for all around
them to see. While many in the US government and traditional media outlets ultimately attributed
Japan’s refusal to approve Corovax to its desire for a domestically produced vaccine, this story gained
little traction across social media platforms.
These actions by the anti-vaccination super-group eventually led to responses from various US
government agencies as well as the emerging pro-vaccination movement. Such responses, however,
were not effective at reaching all groups. Many anti-vaccination proponents had previously limited
their newsfeeds to exclude many state and federal agencies, and other individuals and groups,
particularly those with close ties to Japan, had already begun to consider foregoing Corovax
vaccination in the US and instead traveling to Japan to receive the new vaccine once it became
available in 2027.
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COMMUNICATION DILEMMA
Supporting the Current MCM Product in the Face of
Opposition from a Foreign Regulatory Agency
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
1) In an increasingly interconnected global communication
environment, how could US health officials be better poised to
explain the rationale for their continued recommendation of the
US-based Corovax vaccine when Japan regulators opt not to
approve the vaccine?
2) Given the potential for this scenario to reoccur in another health
emergency, would pre-testing messages about foreign and
domestic regulatory decision-making be helpful in determining if
they resonate with the public?
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A RE Y OU T ALKING TO M E , P ART II
C HAPTER F IFTEEN
Jonathan Atwell
From: Atwell, Jonathan F atwelljonathan@cookcounty.gov
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2026 4:45 PM
To: Sloane, Heidi J; Rojas, Xavier M; Lukas, Andrew J
Subject: UNEQL
Interns, Assemble!
At the county SPARS response briefing today, the County Commissioner and Board of
Administrators identified UNEQL as an untapped social messaging resource to promote county
public health recommendations for SPARS. Despite everyone feigning knowledge and experience
with UNEQL, the closest we came in the room to any kind of exposure to it was several
Department Heads and Administrators whose college-aged kids are on it.
Director of Health, Janice O’Connor, has scheduled a meeting for 10 AM Monday morning to
discuss UNEQL and its potential as a means of communicating with the public. I would like to bring
the three of you along to serve as resident experts on UNEQL in order to help us identify ways to
establish a presence and leverage it to promote public health recommendations.
Take some time tomorrow and this weekend to think through this problem. See you bright and
early Monday! I’ll bring donuts.
Cheers,
Jon
Jonathan Atwell
Cook County Department of Public Health
Infectious Disease Programs Officer
(444) 444-4444
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Another group that was not generally affected by the government’s Corovax promotion efforts were
college students, especially those attending school on the east and west coasts. Public health officials
had no explanation for the lack of vaccine uptake among this population until protests began at several
college campuses including UC Berkeley, the University of Washington, Reed College, Harvard, and
the University of Chicago. The focus of these protests was the lack of access to Corovax, particularly
for populations in less-developed countries like Haiti, Guatemala and Cameroon. The college students
involved declared that they would not accept Corovax until it was made available, in terms of both
access and expense, to everyone in the world who wanted it.
The impact of these protests was substantial. Protesters cited reports and statistics, used photographs
and videos obtained from students studying abroad in affected countries, and re-circulated the
government’s clip of Paul Farmer expressing regret over low Corovax distribution in less-developed
countries to drive home their argument. The students’ views and the protests themselves were
increasingly covered in local, national, and international media as well as social media across the globe.
In the following months, Congressional hearings on access to the vaccine were held in response to the
protests, President Archer conducted meetings with multiple heads-of-state, and the WHO began
developing an enhanced international vaccine program based on the expanded financial support of the
United States and other countries.
Once public health agencies and university administrators became aware of the magnitude of
UNEQL’s influence among college-aged populations, they began to incorporate the platform into their
communication protocols. Three of UNEQL’s reporters were asked to conduct interviews with several
prominent state and federal public health officials and government offices to ensure that pro-Corovax
messages were posted in public UNEQL forums. Despite these efforts, however, vaccination rates
among college students continued to lag behind those of their peers not enrolled in college and the US
population in general. One possible reason for this was that the messages put out by the CDC, FDA,
and other government agencies on UNEQL did not adequately address the specific concerns of college
students and, in the absence of a solution to the issue of global vaccine access, focused instead on the
benefits of Corovax and the nationwide vaccination program.
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COMMUNICATION DILEMMA
Responding to Complex Ethical Issues That are Beyond
the United States Government’s Control
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Which of the following communication measures might help health
authorities successfully encourage college students to seek out
vaccination while world leaders mobilize to improve equity in access
to Corovax globally? How so?
Engaging in direct dialogue with student leaders to understand
their concerns
Communicating to students with empathy and understanding
with respect to their desire to advocate on the behalf of others
Encouraging students to take action in their own communities,
such as volunteering with local health departments, to ensure
that marginalized groups have information about and access to
Corovax
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A NTIBIOTICS , HO!
C HAPTER S IXTEEN
Corovax production continued throughout the fall and winter. By mid-December, vaccines were no
longer limited to priority populations, and by January 2027, efforts to vaccinate the entire US
population were actively underway. Global vaccination efforts up to this point were limited by vaccine
supply, and while they had a moderate effect on SPARS incidence rates, the disease continued to spread
steadily worldwide.
Demographically, vaccination rates across the United States were mixed. Rates were high among
Filipino-Americans, healthcare workers, families with young children, and individuals who identified
themselves as Republicans. Rates were considerably lower among African Americans, Muslims, college
students, and pocketed communities in places like San Francisco and Boston, where anti-vaccine
sentiment was particularly high.
To reach members of these groups—which, with the exception of the pocketed communities, were
largely spread throughout the country—the US government added a new, aggressive advertising
campaign to its pro-vaccination efforts. This campaign provided targeted internet advertisements to
individuals as they conducted web searches or visited anti-vaccination websites. If someone searched
Google for “Corovax side effects,” for example, a sidebar advertisement appeared on the results page
explaining the benefits of the vaccine. Likewise, if someone wished to view the Kalocivir vomiting
video on YouTube, they would first have to watch either a montage of pictures illustrating the effects
of SPARS or a clip of Paul Farmer’s explanation of Corovax’s benefits. This advertisement campaign
required government officials to leverage relationships in the information technology industry,
including the many companies involved with social media, but the impact was worth the effort.
Vaccination rates eventually began increasing across all targeted demographics except the most
recalcitrant anti-vaccine activists.
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A new challenge soon emerged, however: antibiotic shortages. In late 2026, at the height of the cold
and flu season, bacterial pneumonia cases were on the rise across the country. Epidemiologic evidence
later indicated that thirty to forty percent of children and ten to twenty percent of adults developed
secondary bacterial pneumonia approximately four to eight months after initial SPARS infections.
Luckily, most of these infections were easily treated with antibiotics. By February 2027, however,
antibiotic supplies in the United States were running low. In an effort to combat the shortage, HHS
Secretary Nagel authorized deployments of antibiotics from the SNS to supplement health care
systems across the country.
The oldest lots of antibiotics in the SNS were originally scheduled to expire in 2021, but those
expiration dates had been extended multiple times through the Shelf Life Extension Program (SLEP).
Tests conducted in August 2026 showed continued potency of the drugs in 95% of those lots, and all
viable lots were granted another two-year extension, postponing their expiration from 2027 to 2029.
This was the first set of tests indicating any degradation in those lots of antibiotics, and both the Office
of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) and the CDC recommended
purchasing additional inventory to replace the expiring lots by 2030. The most recent tests (conducted
in February 2028) assessed that 94% of the remaining lots due to expire in 2029 remained sufficiently
effective. Federal authorities decided to deploy these lots first to ensure adequate public uptake before
the drugs expired.
Despite proactive efforts to address public concern over the use of antibiotics from the SNS, rumors
about the effectiveness of the drugs spread quickly. Inaccurate local news broadcasts and social media
messages asserted that the government was distributing expired antibiotics, and concerned citizens,
particularly parents of young children, began calling their healthcare providers, pharmacists, and local
health departments to seek clarification. While many of these parents’ fears were alleviated when they
learned about the distinction between shelf life extension and expiration, the effort required to convey
this message to parents on an individual basis proved overwhelming for local health authorities.
The FDA and CDC had not anticipated such a strong and rapid response from the public on this issue,
and they were initially unprepared to combat the negative publicity. Within 48 hours, however, a
coordinated response was developed that highlighted the need for the rapid deployment of antibiotics
and illustrated the capability of the SNS to do just that. The decision to deploy antibiotics closest to
expiring was also justified by providing concrete and consistent laboratory evidence of every test
performed on the deployed lots of antibiotics, noting consistent potency of the drugs over their entire
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shelf lives and comparable potency of the deployed lots to newer lots. Having dealt with multiple
communications issues over the course of the SPARS pandemic, federal leaders successfully applied
communications lessons learned from past failures and coordinated a rapid and effective response.
Despite the stubborn persistence of the echo-chamber, where increasingly connected individuals
persistently chose to only listen to opinions that mirrored their own, not all opinions remained static
throughout the SPARS pandemic. In January 2027, Alyssa Karpowitz, one of the most outspoken antiKalocivir and anti-Corovax activists and a leader in the natural medicine movement, had an experience
that changed her stance on the use of “expired” antibiotics. Her youngest son, Lennon, contracted a
mild case of SPARS and experienced few complications, but several months later he developed a severe
case of post-SPARS bacterial pneumonia. Alyssa attempted to treat Lennon with a variety of natural
medicines, but his condition deteriorated. Desperate, she took him to her local emergency department
where he was administered a dose of intravenous antibiotics deployed to the hospital from the SNS. As
Alyssa later described, “The effect was almost instantaneous. Within a day I had my beautiful baby boy
back!”
As a result of this experience, Alyssa used all of her connections in the natural medicine and anti-
vaccine circles to share her story and her newfound belief in the safety and effectiveness of “expired”
antibiotics. While her message about the antibiotics being expired was erroneous, her outreach proved
extremely effective. While many people who participated in these groups were no longer listening to
official or even unofficial communications about the safety and effectiveness of the recommended
pharmaceuticals, they were willing to listen to Alyssa. As a result, the opposition to “expired”
antibiotics in the groups to which Alyssa belonged began to dissipate.
When government health authorities became aware of the impact of Alyssa’s story on her followers
and others who heard about her son’s recovery, they began to expand their use of social media to
gather accounts of positive experiences with Corovax and antibiotics used to treat post-SPARS
pneumonia. The CDC in particular began mining data from public social media sources for positive
stories they could include in their new outreach efforts. While limited to individuals who were still
receiving messages from the CDC, or news outlets that reported information from the CDC, the
impact of these outreach efforts was positive. National surveys conducted in the months following
Alyssa’s decision to give her son antibiotics and the government’s efforts to promote Corovax showed
that opposition to Corovax decreased by 23% and opposition to antibiotic use from the SNS decreased
by 61% among the general US population.
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COMMUNICATION DILEMMA
Responding to Questions Regarding Safety
and Efficacy of Drugs That Have Extended Shelf Lives
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
1) Given that the term “expiration date” can trigger public
misunderstanding about the safety and efficacy of SNS-stockpiled
drugs, how might pre-message testing around this topic and shelf
life extension have proved useful to health authorities in the SPARS
context?
2) Why were partnerships between the federal government and the
information technology industry, including a number of social
media companies, so vital to increasing overall uptake of the
Corovax vaccine?
3) What communication strategies might be effective at
overcoming the “echo-chamber” effect over the course of the
SPARS outbreak? What pre-crisis measures, if any, might have
been useful to dampen the “echo-chamber” effect?
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RECOVERY
V ACCINE I NJURY
C HAPTER S EVENTEEN
In contrast to Alyssa Karpowitz’s story, not all changes in opinion were in favor of public health
messaging. As time passed and more people across the United States were vaccinated, claims of
adverse side effects began to emerge. Several parents claimed that their children were experiencing
neurological symptoms similar to those seen among livestock exposed to the GMI vaccine. By May
2027, parental anxiety around this claim had intensified to the point of lawsuits. That month, a group
of parents whose children developed mental retardation as a result of encephalitis in the wake of
Corovax vaccination sued the federal government, demanding removal of the liability shield protecting
the pharmaceutical companies responsible for developing and manufacturing Corovax.
The growing plaintiff cohort quickly withdrew their suit upon learning that the National Vaccine
Injury Compensation Trust Fund (NVICTF) and an emergency appropriation of funds authorized by
Congress under the PREP Act existed to provide financial reimbursement to those who were adversely
affected by the Corovax vaccine in order to cover healthcare costs and other related expenses.2,3 Given
the positive reaction to the federal government’s response and the fact that the majority of US citizens
willing to be vaccinated had already been immunized, the negative publicity surrounding adverse
reactions had little effect on nationwide vaccination rates. The focus on adverse side effects, however,
resulted in a considerable increase in the number of compensation claims filed, and many grew
concerned about the long-term effects that Corovax could have on their health. This concern was
particularly high among some African American parents who continued to question the government’s
motives regarding the Corovax vaccination campaign.
While the FDA, CDC, and other agencies were busy researching possible connections between
Corovax and the reported neurological side effects, their efforts were continually undermined by
epidemiological analyses produced by various non-governmental individuals and groups. A popular
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science blogger EpiGirl, for example, began posting interactive maps of the incidence of Corovax side
effects in April 2027. To create the maps, EpiGirl collected anecdotes of adverse Corovax side effects
using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and combined them with data downloaded from the HHS
Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a national vaccine safety surveillance program
maintained by the CDC and FDA. EpiGirl also encouraged those among her subscribers who were
Apple product users to share health data with her via Apple’s ResearchKit and HealthKit applications.
EpiGirl’s maps were consequently shared widely in social media circles and even included in local and
national news reports.
The federal government became concerned about the validity of EpiGirl’s anecdotal data and the
widespread sharing of patient information via the internet. EpiGirl’s data showed a significantly higher
incidence rate of nearly every reported side effect; however, federal officials believed that this was
largely due to duplicate entries resulting from compiling data from multiple sources. Additionally,
EpiGirl’s data did not seek to address the cause of the reported side effects, only the incidence rate.
Publication of similar results from organizations such as Patients-Like-Me, a group closely associated
with the natural medicine movement, further legitimized these independent reports. The government
attempted to respond to these claims through formal press releases, but these were neither as visually
appealing nor as interactive as EpiGirl’s maps and were, therefore, largely ignored.
While the federal government appeared to have appropriately addressed concerns around the acute
side effects of Corovax, the long-term, chronic effects of the vaccine were still largely unknown.
Nearing the end of 2027, reports of new neurological symptoms began to emerge. After showing no
adverse side effects for nearly a year, several vaccine recipients slowly began to experience symptoms
such as blurry vision, headaches, and numbness in their extremities. Due to the small number of these
cases, the significance of their association with Corovax was never determined. As of this writing in
2030, longitudinal studies initiated by the NIH at the beginning of the vaccination program have not
reached the next round of data collection, so formal analysis on these symptoms has not yet been
conducted. Furthermore, these cases arose from the initial cohort of vaccine recipients—those in highrisk populations, including those with other underlying health conditions—making it increasingly
difficult to determine the extent to which these symptoms are associated with vaccination.
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As these cases emerged, patients began filing for compensation under the PREP Act. Due to lingering
uncertainties over possible links between vaccination and reported neurological symptoms, their
compensation requests were placed on indefinite hold, pending further data analysis. This cohort,
many of whom adamantly supported the Corovax vaccine initially, quickly took to social media to
publicize their issues.
Despite relatively few reports of neurological symptoms, the social media response was immense. After
experiencing initial success with PREP Act compensation policies and working diligently to ensure
transparency throughout the claim request and evaluation process, HHS was caught off guard by the
new round of negative publicity. They were pressured by the public and media to award compensation
to those claiming long-term effects from Corovax despite having no data to support these claims.
Displaying a fundamental misunderstanding of scientific research, many demanded proof that the
vaccines did not cause long-term effects. HHS Secretary Nagel firmly and vocally supported the
decision to postpone evaluation of all claims of long-term side effects and invited an independent
Congressional investigation to ensure that the PREP Act was being properly implemented.
In addition to demands for immediate compensation, Congress faced public pressure to increase the
PREP Act emergency appropriation. While the initial allocation of funds was sufficient to provide
compensation for acute side effects, the prospect of long-term effects and potentially permanent
disability gave rise to concerns that additional resources would be necessary in the near future.
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COMMUNICATION DILEMMA
C o m m u n i c a t i n g Wi t h t h e P u b l i c A b o u t
Trustworthy Sources of Data and
Options for Legal Recourse in a Climate of Mistrust
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
1) How might advance development and testing of recovery
messages that specifically address the topics of adverse side
effects and the NVICTF help improve health authorities’ ability to
respond to public distress about medical issues emerging after a
MCM campaign? What are some messages that would warrant
such testing?
2) Despite the uncertain science about the link between Coravax
and the reported neurological symptoms, why should health
officials still communicate with compassion and genuine
sympathy toward those in the vaccinated population who
experience medical issues subsequent to being vaccinated?
3) Given growing interest in open data systems and the application
of “crowd sourcing” to solve complex problems, how might
public health officials take greater advantage of two-way
communication with an interested public in the aftermath of the
SPARS outbreak? For instance, how might input and analysis from
members of the public help improve adverse event monitoring or
assess the strengths and weaknesses of a specific MCM
campaign?
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A CKNOWLEDGING L OSS
C HAPTER E IGHTEEN
At the request of HHS Secretary Nagel, ASPR convened a series of meetings among senior leadership
of the federal health agencies to address policy and program changes being implemented as a result of
a departmental review of the response to the SPARS pandemic. Among the issues considered were the
implications of growing negative public opinion regarding Corovax and the government’s perceived
indifference to victims of the public health response to SPARS. One senior health official argued that
time and a robust medical monitoring program for vaccine recipients—the components of which were
already in place—should be sufficient to determine whether public concern about long-term effects
was, in fact, warranted: “We have to wait for the data. People need to understand that fact.”
One prominent attendee at these meetings was Dr. Ann Flynn, the director of the Substance Abuse
and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Staff from the administration’s Disaster
Technical Assistance Center had recently briefed Dr. Flynn on usage data for the SAMHSA Disaster
Distress Helpline over the past year, and summary reports indicated that a significant number of
helpline users said that their principal worry was associated with the SPARS pandemic and, more
recently, uncertainty about potential long-term effects of Corovax. Considering this new knowledge,
Dr. Flynn countered the earlier claim that the public simply needed to wait until the science was clear:
“Communities around the country went through what some felt was a harrowing public health
emergency, only later to confront the possibility, however slim, that the medicine we promised would
help them may in fact be hurting them.”
The senior leaders in attendance concluded, after much prompting by Dr. Flynn, that no top political
or public health figurehead had publicly recognized the collective sense of vulnerability that the
pandemic had elicited or the strength that the public exhibited under threat of grave danger.
Moreover, no national leader had publicly acknowledged the public’s broad willingness to accept a
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prescribed countermeasure that promised to end the pandemic, but whose long-term consequences
were not fully understood at the time.
Following the meeting, ASPR recommended to HHS Secretary Nagel that SAMHSA collaborate with
stakeholders and devise behavioral health guidance for the states, tribes, and territories on how to
strengthen the public’s coping skills, provide support for grieving individuals, encourage a forward
direction, and meet other SPARS recovery needs. It was further recommended that Secretary Nagel
consult with President Archer about the possibility of acknowledging the emotional toll of SPARS
during a future public appearance. The primary message would be one of gratitude to the American
people for remaining strong during the pandemic. Another key message would convey appreciation for
adhering to public health recommendations, including vaccination, to hasten the end of the pandemic
in the face of considerable uncertainty.
President Archer agreed to address the country’s resolve and recovery in the face of SPARS. Top risk
communication advisors from the CDC, FDA, NIH, and SAMHSA conferred as a group about how
best to frame the President’s remarks. The group vigorously debated whether it was appropriate for
the President to acknowledge the sacrifice that vaccine recipients had made on behalf of their
communities or to console them in their grief over that sacrifice.
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COMMUNICATION DILEMMA
B r i n g i n g a S e n s e o f R e s o l u t i o n t o a P e r i o d o f C r i s i s Wh i l e
Striking a Balance Between the Need to Affirm
Collective Grief and Loss and the Need to Move Forward
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
1) Given the uncertain long-term safety profile of the Corovax
vaccine, why are both science and sympathy necessary when
communicating about a possible correlation between
vaccination and adverse events?
2) What general communication principles does the advice of Dr.
Ann Flynn suggest with respect to the recovery phase of a public
health emergency involving MCMs? What might pre-event
planning for recovery-phase communication look like based on
her guidance?
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The SPARS Pandemic
SPARS A FTERMATH
C HAPTER N INETEEN
Today, nearly five years since the St. Paul Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus made its global
debut, there remain human cases in 14 countries across Europe, Africa, and Asia. The pandemic
officially ended in August 2028, but the virus persists in domesticated animal reservoirs. WHO experts
hypothesize that small, isolated outbreaks of SPARS were occurring long before the disease emerged
on a global scale in 2025, and they anticipate that future outbreaks will continue to emerge unless
countries maintain widespread vaccination coverage.
As the pandemic tapered off, several influential politicians and agency representatives came under fire
for sensationalizing the severity of the event for perceived political gain. As with many public health
interventions, successful efforts to reduce the impact of the pandemic created the illusion that the event
was not nearly as serious as experts suggested it would be. President Archer’s detractors in the
Republican Party seized the opportunity to publicly disparage the President and his administration’s
response to the pandemic, urging voters to elect “a strong leader with the best interests of the
American people at heart.” A widespread social media movement led primarily by outspoken parents of
affected children, coupled with widespread distrust of “big pharma,” supported the narrative that the
development of SPARS MCMs was unnecessary and driven by a few profit-seeking individuals.
Conspiracy theories also proliferated across social media, suggesting that the virus had been purposely
created and introduced to the population by drug companies or that it had escaped from a government
lab secretly testing bioweapons.
After-action reports, government hearings, and agency reviews following the pandemic were too
numerous to count. Emergency funding appropriated by Congress to fight the disease became available
partway through the course of the pandemic, but federal, state, and local public health agencies
struggled to manage the procedural requirements to spend it. As a result, significant amounts of
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C HAPTER N INETEEN
emergency funds remained unused as the pandemic wound down. As the investigations grew in
intensity, several high-ranking officials at the CDC and FDA were forced to step down and withdraw
from government in order to “spend more time with their families.” Exhausted employees of these
agencies, many of whom worked long hours six or seven days a week throughout the pandemic, simply
wanted to put the whole response behind them. Little desire remained on the part of decision-makers
or those who served in the trenches during the response to rehash the events of the past several years.
The very real possibility of a future SPARS pandemic necessitates continued commitment to
vaccination programs as well as accurate, culturally appropriate, and timely communication from
public health agencies across the planet. While the communication experiences of the SPARS pandemic
of 2025-2028 offer some examples for how this communication can and should occur, they also identify
practices that should be avoided, or at least modified, for responses to future public health emergencies.
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C HAPTER N INETEEN
COMMUNICATION DILEMMA
Institutionalizing Communications Lessons from the
2025-2028 SPARS Pandemic
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
What benefits might arise if health authorities publicly share what they
have learned from MCM use during the health emergency (including
response missteps and successes) and communicate how
government agencies plan to evolve on the basis of that
information?
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The SPARS Pandemic
REFERENCES & APPENDICES
REFERENCES
R EFERENCES
1) Ogilvy J, Schwartz P. Plotting Your Scenarios. Emeryville, CA. 2004: http://
www.meadowlark.co/plotting_your_scenarios.pdf. Accessed April 13, 2015.
2) Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act. In: Department of Health and Human
Services, ed. Washington, DC. 2005.
3) Health Resources and Services Administration. National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.
http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/index.html. Accessed April 6, 2015.
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ACRONYMS
A CRONYMS
Following is an alphabetized list of acronyms used throughout the scenario.
ACIP: Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice
ASPR: Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response
CDC: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
EHR: Electronic health records
EUA: Emergency Use Authorization
FDA: Food and Drug Administration
HHS: Department of Health & Human Services
IAT: Internet-accessing technology
MERS: Middle East Respiratory Syndrome
MCM: Medical countermeasure
NAIHS: Navajo Area Indian Health Service
NIH: National Institutes of Health
NVICTF: National Vaccine Injury Compensation Trust Fund
POD: Point of dispensing
PHEIC: Public health emergency of international concern
RCT: Randomized controlled trial
SARS: Severe acute respiratory syndrome
SAMHSA: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
SLEP: Shelf Life Extension Program
SPARS: St. Paul Acute Respiratory Syndrome
SNS: Strategic National Stockpile
VAERS: Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System
WHO: World Health Organization
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A PPENDIX A
R ESPONSE S CENARIO T IMELINE
2025
October
November
The first US deaths occurred due to SPARS. Initially, these deaths were thought to
Cases of SPARS were reported across Minnesota and in six other states.
Thanksgiving holiday travel and Black Friday shopping facilitated spread of SPARS
beyond the Midwest (26 states and multiple other countries by mid-December).
The WHO declared the SPARS pandemic to be a Public Health Emergency of
International Concern.
December
No treatment or vaccine for SPARS existed, but there was some evidence that the
antiviral Kalocivir could be effective as a therapeutic.
A proprietary vaccine developed and manufactured by a multinational livestock
conglomerate (GMI) was proposed as a potential foundation for a human vaccine. The
vaccine was developed to combat an outbreak of a similar respiratory coronavirus in
hooved mammal populations in Southeast Asia, but the vaccine had not been licensed
by any regulatory authority or tested in humans. There were concerns over potential
2026
January
The US government contracted CynBio to develop and produce a human SPARS
vaccine based on the GMI animal vaccine.
The HHS Secretary invoked the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act
(PREP Act) to provide liability protection for the vaccine manufacturer and providers.
Congress authorized and appropriated emergency funds under the PREP Act to
provide compensation for potential adverse side effects from the vaccine.
Following reports of Kalocivir’s limited success in treating patients with severe
SPARS infections, the FDA issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the
antiviral. Kalocivir had been evaluated as a therapeutic for SARS and MERS, and
several million doses were maintained in the SNS, which could be deployed as
necessary while production capacity was established to meet demand.
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2026
January
The FDA, CDC, and NIH provided seemingly conflicting communications regarding
the safety and efficacy of Kalocivir.
In the United States, public anxiety around SPARS resulted in extensive use of
Kalocivir, frequent self-reporting of SPARS symptoms, and a surge in demand for
medical care.
By late January SPARS was detected in 42 countries and all US states.
February
A lack of cultural competency in FDA and other governmental communication became
apparent among various ethnic groups in the United States.
A video of 3-year-old vomiting and fainting after taking a dose of Kalocivir was widely
and rapidly spread via social media, strengthening opposition to the EUA.
March
The FDA released updated efficacy and side effect information for Kalocivir. Social
media reports regarding Kalocivir were more ubiquitous than official releases.
The UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency and the European
Medicines Agency jointly authorized the emergency use of a new antiviral, VMax, in
the United Kingdom and throughout the Eurpoean Union. Some Americans attempted
to gain access to VMax online or by traveling to Europe.
April
The CDC publicized an updated (and significantly lower) case fatality rate in the
United States; the perception of lesser risk triggered a drop in public interest.
May
Production of Corovax, the SPARS vaccine produced by CynBio, was well underway.
Federal agencies initiated a communications campaign using well-known public figures
with mixed results. Polls indicated a 15-23% increase in SPARS and Kalocivir
knowledge nationwide. Hip hop icon BZee had success promoting public health
messaging with an online video clip, but he lost credibility when he compared
volunteers for Corovax trials with “volunteers” from the Tuskegee syphilis study.
Similarly, former President Bennett provided a non-committal response when asked if
she would want Kalocivir for her new grandson.
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2026
May
Public health agencies discovered that a relatively new social media platform, UNEQL,
was being used as a primary means of communication in college-aged populations.
June
Corovax entered the final stage of its expedited review, and production capacity was
increased. Ten million doses were expected to be available by July with fifty million
more in August.
The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice (ACIP) announced vaccine
priority groups. Healthcare providers were not included as a priority, inciting protests
by doctors and nurses across the country.
In order to prioritize distribution of limited Corovax supply, the federal government
requested that states report summary information for patient electronic health records
(EHRs) to estimate the number of individuals in high-risk populations. This effort was
met with resistance from the public, who protested the federal government accessing
their private medical information.
July
A week prior to initiating the nationwide vaccination program, damage to a power grid
in the Pacific Northwest resulted in a widespread power outage that lasted two weeks.
State and local public health agencies initiated communications programs using posters
and flyers to promote the vaccination program in the absence of electronic media.
Social media efforts across the country promoted the vaccination campaign, and
crowdsourced data helped to increase efficiency in distributing the vaccine.
August
The Corovax vaccination program met resistance from several groups: alternative
medicine proponents, Muslims, African Americans, and anti-vaccination activists.
Initially operating independently, these groups banded together via social media to
increase their influence.
September
Japan announced that it would not approve Corovax for use in Japan in favor of
developing and producing its own vaccine.
October
College students predominantly on the east and west coasts, staged protests against
the unequal global availability of Corovax. Vaccination rates among these students
were below average for college students in other areas of the country.
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2026
November
The anti-anti-vaccine movement, formed in the wake of the 2015 measles outbreak in
the United States, reignited their efforts to combat the anti-vaccination super-group.
The FDA, CDC and other federal agencies also redoubled their communications efforts
to promote the Corovax campaign.
An increasing number of post-SPARS pneumonia cases were reported across the
country.
December
The nationwide vaccination program was expanded beyond the initial priority
populations to include the rest of the country.
Federal agencies initiated a vaccination communication program involving targeted
online advertisements.
2027
February
Post-SPARS pneumonia cases stressed inventories of antibiotics across the country.
The HHS Secretary authorized distribution of the oldest lots of antibiotics from the
SNS to supplement the antibiotic supply nationwide.
Tests of antibiotics in the SNS inventory determined that 94% of the remaining
antibiotics in the oldest lots maintained sufficient potency. Tests conducted in August
2026 provided the basis for extending the expiration of these lots from 2027 to 2029.
March
Rumors spread via traditional and social media that the government was dispensing
expired antibiotics.
Alyssa Karpowitz, a leader in the natural medicine movement, sought medical care at
an emergency department after natural remedies failed to resolve her son’s bacterial
pneumonia. After successful treatment with proper antibiotics from the SNS supply,
she touted the benefits of “expired” antibiotics in her social media circles.
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A PPENDIX B
C OMMUNICATION D ILEMMAS
R ESPONSE S CENARIO
1) Engendering public trust and a sense of self-efficacy when a crisis is still evolving and critical
health information is incomplete (Page 4)
2) Responding to public and political pressure to share information about potential MCMs in the
development pipeline even though information may be incomplete or proprietary (Page 8)
3) Maintaining trust in government processes for ensuring the timely development of safe and
effective vaccines when novel threats arise (Page 11)
4) Harmonizing inconsistent messaging across health agencies (Page 14)
5) Appropriately tailoring public health messages to address the concerns and culture of specific
communities (Page 14)
6) Responding to the power of graphic images of a child in distress: one story that is elevated to a
population-level problem (Page 19)
7) Responding to demand for an alternative antiviral drug not available in the United States
(Page 23)
8) Responding to misinformation or doubt about a MCM generated by a prominent public figure
(Page 25)
9) Overlooking communication platforms used by specific groups; quickly gaining fluency and
effectively engaging the public using a new media platform (Page 29)
10) Responding to public criticism about potential unequal access to MCMs like Kalocivir (Page 29)
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C OMMUNICATION D ILEMMAS
R ESPONSE S CENARIO
11) Maintaining public support after changing positions on MCM safety and efficacy (Page 31)
12) Communicating the need for and reasoning behind the prioritization of scarce resources (Page 34)
13) Publicizing MCM programs and availability to promote uptake and efficient distribution
(Page 37)
14) Providing real-time data on vaccine availability to align MCM supply with public demand
(Page 37)
15) Maintaining consistent messaging across electronic and non-electronic media and implementing a
secondary communications plan if electronic media are not available (Page 40)
16) Addressing multiple independent MCM concerns simultaneously (Page 43)
17) Meeting the information needs of citizens who come from diverse cultural, social, and demographic
backgrounds and who may have varying degrees of trust in health authorities (Page 43)
18) Supporting the current MCM product in the face of opposition from a foreign regulatory agency
(Page 49)
19) Responding to complex ethical issues that are beyond the United States government’s control
(Page 52)
20) Responding to questions regarding safety and efficacy of drugs that have extended shelf lives
(Page 55)
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A PPENDIX C
R ECOVERY S CENARIO T IMELINE
2027
April
Crowd-sourced and independent epidemiology analysis of Corovax side effects
conflicted with official federal reports. The independent analyses gained popularity in
traditional and social media due to visual presentation and interactive content.
Government attempts to respond with data and press releases largely failed.
May
Reports of Corovax side effects began to gain traction. Several parents of children who
experienced neurological symptoms after receiving the vaccination sued the federal
government and CynBio. The lawsuit was dropped when they learned of compensation
funds available through the PREP Act and the National Vaccine Injury Compensation
Trust Fund.
November
Initial reports of long-term side effects of the Corovax vaccine emerged. These reports
arose primarily from those in the initial priority (high-risk) populations and were few
in number. With little available data and numerous pre-existing conditions, initial
studies were unable to identify a statistically significant association with any long-term
effects. Claims for compensation were placed on indefinite hold until further data could
be gathered and analysis completed.
In response to public demand for long-term side effect compensation, the HHS
Secretary invited Congress to conduct an independent investigation of the federal
compensation process to alleviate concerns of impropriety.
The public and media pressured Congress to increase the funds authorized for
compensation under the PREP Act.
2028
August
The SPARS pandemic was officially declared to be over; however, experts remain
concerned about domestic animal reservoirs and the potential for future outbreaks.
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A PPENDIX D
C OMMUNICATION D ILEMMAS
R ECOVERY S CENARIO
1) Communicating with the public about trustworthy sources of data and options for legal recourse in
a climate of mistrust (Page 59)
2) Bringing a sense of resolution to a period of crisis while striking a balance between the need to
affirm collective grief/loss and the need to move forward (Page 63)
3) Institutionalizing communications lessons from the 2025-2028 SPARS pandemic (Page 66)
Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
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