I'm not a health professional but I thought this article by an expert in risk communication might be of interest to people who are:
“Fear Is Spreading Faster than SARS” – And So It Should!
From the article (which was written in 2003 when SARS was a growing risk) (underlining mine):
The first half of our title was the headline of a recent New York Times article on SARS. The second half is a risk communication lesson that most health officials and many journalists have been slow to learn. It isn’t only about SARS. Regardless of the hazard, fear is a tool, not just a problem. The purpose of fear is to motivate precautions – that is, self-protective behaviors that diminish the risk of bad outcomes. To be useful, then, the fear has to outrun the thing that is feared; fear that lags behind its object is useless. Yet somehow the public is being told that it is wrong, irrational, panicky, or hysterical to be fearful of SARS just yet.
Public anxiety can lead to genuine panic or to astonishing resilience. The paradox is that efforts to squelch the anxiety (“allay the public’s fear” is the usual phrase) can actually induce the panic it aims to prevent. Resilience is likelier when authorities ally with the anxiety, harness it, and steer it instead of trying to prevent it. Of course even superb handling of the public’s fears may not prevent panic if the epidemic gets bad enough. There has often been some panic during the great epidemics of the past. But panic will be likelier and more widespread if the authorities have been minimizing the risk than if they have been acknowledging it candidly and compassionately.
The article is a long but interesting read. The basic argument is that a certain amount of fear is appropriate, and attempts to reassure people that there's nothing to worry about until it's certain things will get bad, are positively unhelpful. They prevent people from getting gradually ready to take the necessary precautions, and they cause more panic in the long run.
Again from the article:
One of the lessons the SARS epidemic has taught us, or retaught us, is that a few sick people who are insufficiently concerned (or insufficiently screened) can wreak havoc.
I think health professionals who are in the front line of this need the public to be well prepared to do what they need to to reduce the spread of coronavirus and to look after themselves. And that means it's potentially dangerous just to keep reassuring people that there's nothing to worry about, right up until we're really sure things are definitely going to be bad. It means it's better to acknowledge that there is a storm on the horizon, so ordinary people can get used to that idea and get ready for it, even though there's still a small chance the storm will turn away.