All For One

It's legitimate to say that once an emergency has started, there is no time to worry about building trust. But that, more than anything else, is the reason to worry about building trust when there isn't an emergency going on.

The current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic exemplifies this. Because of the increased transmissibility of the Delta variant (which may still be the one that's currently ascendant in the United States) the level of immunity, natural or vaccine-induced, that's needed to impede infections from easily moving to new hosts is pretty high; therefore, interventions designed to slow disease spread (whether pharmaceutical or social) have a high sensitivity to defections. And it's not difficult to find columnists from a number of different backgrounds calling for measures to mandate, if not compel, greater cooperation.

Somewhat harder is finding people willing to comment about the overall lack of trust that drives the defections. It should not be taken as given that people understand that vaccination is safe, effective and low (or no) cost. It's a bit disingenuous to presume that, and from there label people as somehow anti-social for looking out for themselves. In the end, people take care of societies, because they expect that societies will take care of them. If people were willing to sacrifice themselves for a greater good that they themselves would never be able to participate in, the world would look much different than it does.