The Three Rs of Fear Messaging in a Global Pandemic: Recommendations, Ramifications and Remediation.

Introduction: We consider the UK Independent Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours' (SPI-B) support for fear messaging during the global COVID-19 pandemic, evaluate the consequences and make recommendations for the future.

Analysis: Using evidence from published documents, we show that SPI-B supported the use of fear messaging during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is inconsistent with the extant psychological literature and contrary to the disaster planning literature.