>>14153471I take issue because it's an optimistic prediction that gets people's hopes up, which if it fails, will make the public even more disillusioned in the incompetence of the experts making it. After previous optimistic predictions made up until now by experts were dashed, it decreased the trust in said experts by the general public and made them less and less likely to listen to said experts, even converting some to the anti-vax side. Optimism dashed leads to negative feelings because things are not improving at a rate people were told to expect and those negative feelings are partially channeled towards the experts making the predictions.
On the other hand, if experts predict a pessimistic outcome, the public will instead be relieved if they get an outcome that is not quite as bad--that relief is a positive feeling, which then will not unleash negative reactions to the degree the reverse situation does.
To put it simply, humans like to be pleasantly surprised. They don't like to be unpleasantly surprised.
If experts had said people will likely require boosters after the 2 initial doses and did not mention any possible expectation of immunity that could last years, then people would not have had their hopes dashed.
If experts had not kept bringing up herd immunity as a potential "out" of the pandemic, people would not have gotten mad when we never reached it.
If experts had told people to continue to wear masks after the initial doses, they wouldn't have had people calling them incompetent when it turned out CDC had to walk that recommendation back and tell vaccinated people to begin wearing them again.
