Global health. The current scenario and future perspectives

300 The informative reports during those first weeks were cautious and still confusing. Journalists and media workers acknowledged certain caution when covering a pandemic. “We did not even agree on how to write the name of the virus. In some media outlets they referred to it as ‘the Chinese virus’ 62 ” and disregarded recommendations not to associate viral diseases with specific nationalities as this triggers discrimination and xenophobia, as experience and history have shown (Holt et al., 2022). Caution or sometimes confusion in delivering and producing information from different players was a characteristic feature of those early weeks. The dissimilar or even opposed nature between scientific research and news production conspired to generate more fluid information processes. As Daniel Silva, a Chilean journalist specializing in science and technology, rightly says 63 : “The time frame for science differs greatly from that of the media ” 64 . Indeed, while the press deals with a 24/7 news cycle that requires accurate urgent responses, the scientific community can take years to establish the origin and initial infection paths for a new disease 65 . As journalist Francisco Aravena highlight s 66 , “Something that became evident during this pandemic is how scientific knowledge is always under construction. How we start knowing very little or nothing at all before gradually deciphering it day by day. ” 67 . Indeed, Spillover (Quammen, 2012) seems like a chronicle of what was to come. The book shows how difficult it is to determine how, when and why a virus from non-human living beings infects humans, what the vector is, what the pattern of contagion or its rate of reproduction is and, above all, how much - which is a lot - remains unknown about viruses. Quammen extensively reports on cases such as hendra, Ebola, SARS and AIDS, but doubts (which outnumber certainties) also apply to Covid-19 and the viruses that came and will come. Thus, the need to face this health crisis has led society to demand accurate information from science “despite the fact that often there is only uncertainty” (León et al., 2022: 6). 62 Foreign correspondent based in Santiago de Chile. Personal communication, August 7 th , 2022. 63 Host of “Planeta Futuro” on Mega TV channel and “La ciencia del futuro” podcast on online radio TXS+ (https://txsplus.com/ciencia-del-futuro /). 64 Ceremony “Recognition for Communication...”, ISP and IMII, August 4 th , 2022. 65 “From Wuhan to Paris to Milan, the search for ‘patient zero’“, The Washington Post, July 7 th , 2021. 66 Aravena hosts the radio show “Aire Fresco” (https://www.duna.cl/programas/aire-fresco/) in radio station Duna in which scientists are interviewed. During the pandemic, the radio show maintained the podcast “Coronavirus al día”, covering data on infections, measures for resuming school, progress and improvement in development, production and distribution of vaccines. 67 Ceremony “Recognition for Communication...”, ISP and IMII, August 4 th , 2022.