What happens when you combine a global pandemic with unprecedented access to instant mass communication in a culture that is suspicious of expertise and authority? A very strange few years, as it turns out, and a multitude of paradoxes.

These are times when we need all the expertise that public health clinicians have trained for, as well as true leadership from our administration and government.

Yet, we have a simultaneous desperation for these people to lead us in the right direction while also questioning their reasoning, motivation and competence.

It seems that, at times of extreme uncertainty, we both crave strong leadership and reject it.

Even in the absence of specialist expertise in the clinical area, the most recent research literature or relevant risk assessments, we seem to want to make a decision for ourselves rather than have rules imposed on us.

This can lead to the very antithesis of public health: individual, self-focused decision-making rather than balanced policy in the public interest.