Chapter 12 Why Did Risk Communication Fail for the COVID-19 Pandemic, and How Can We Do Better? José Palma-Oliveira, Benjamin D. Trump, and Igor Linkov Abstract The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic was an enormous challenge for risk com- municators. From the basic life sciences questions regarding the viruses and its effects to the ef ficacy of associated interventions, communicators around the world had to compete with an endless array of hostile and inaccurate messaging – often within an environment of equally considerable uncertainty and urgency. There were many successes with such public engagement, but considerable opportunities to improve upon. This chapter discusses some of the causes of communication breakdowns, and describes how the corresponding social dilemmas and complex- ities of socioecological systems can be more effectively characterized and addressed for future crises. Keywords Risk communication Á COVID-19 Á Public decision-making Á Public health 12.1 Introduction No matter how robustly engineered or well-intentioned, even the most simple and benign activities are bound to yield some measure of harm. Often, this is due to technical oversight or system design flaws, where material properties of a product possess some unforeseen hazard, or a given activity may yield undesirable conse- quences to key stakeholders or unintended receptors. In other instances, deliberate or negligent application of a product or activity beyond its intended purpose con- tributes to unintended downstream risk. Developers and practitioners assigned to J. Palma-Oliveira Faculty of Psychology, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal e-mail: jpalma-oliveira@psicologia.ulisboa.pt B. D. Trump Á I. Linkov (&) US Army Corps of Engineers, Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), Vicksburg, USA e-mail: Igor.Linkov@usace.army.mil © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 I. Linkov et al. (eds.), COVID-19: Systemic Risk and Resilience, Risk, Systems and Decisions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71587-8_12 195