The original version of this interview was made and published by journalist Andrea Momoitio in Pikara Magazine, in Spanish. The article has been translated into Basque in the following lines.

Do we know that journalists tell us about pandemics? What keys should we take into account?

It should be made clear who the journalists are. In the other pandemics that I have analyzed, media transmission has been widely criticized by the population. We are talking about the media, and it seems that we are talking about an entity, but, to this day, it is no longer the case. There are still great media outlets, but also many people who are working differently. The public believes that there is great manipulation and, in this pandemic, much is being said about media bombardment, but we have to look at the extremes. We are overloaded with information and we do not know who reports it. Newsreels? People creating fake news? When do we forward information?

How is it affecting us so much bombardment?

These days, beyond people suffering from anxiety or depression, anyone who has suffered a decline in their lives, a separation, an alien disease, a vulnerable moment, whatever, is much worse. In China this was taken into account. Subsequent studies point to the fact that psychological assistance phones were launched from the very beginning. This aid is not being carried out in the same way or is not being systematized here. We need social policies. If we are to be confined at home, we need a social policy that protects us. There should be institutional provision for all weak people: people with depression, yes, but also elderly people or people living alone, who may not have spoken to whom. It's very sad not to have who to talk to. These people are much more afraid of contagion and death in solitude.

Does the public utility role of the media respond to the fact that it is constantly reporting what is happening?

Reporting is important, but many other things are also important. We shouldn't just have coronavirus programs. We have to run away, we have to have information about other things. The other day a journalist said it wasn't easy to do other kinds of information because of the very characteristics of the confinement, but, beyond putting ourselves prism in journalism, we can put it in us. If we're talking about this all day, watching programs about it, our mental health may be impaired. Also in this life of isolation we must breathe.

Can decay be avoided?

We have never experienced such a situation. In other epidemics he also complained about receiving a lot of information, but now social media plays an important role. I don't know if you can avoid it, but if you can filter it or not, listen or not, read or not read. In the research being carried out, non-chronic levels of anxiety have been found among young people, but higher than among the older ones. One of the explanations is related to the number of audios, messages and among them, fake news they receive. The bombing is total on social media. This situation is nothing more than crap, but to get out of here, you can socialize through the networks, and that saves us. We should help them establish filters to ensure their psychological well-being.

What about networks?

Social networks are creating two currents. On the one hand, they're highly criticized for the phenomenon of fake news, which doesn't let us breathe, but they're also a resilience tool to the containment state. My children make video calls to talk to Birramona. People are social beings, and we need to socialize. Networks are giving a lot of life. Then you have to be careful about social posture. Now, at home. It looks like we're great here, boys and girls are always entertained, we have 400-square-meter terraces, and it seems like it's wrong to say that this containment is shit. Yeah, you can take the good side out of it, but it's still crap. I, for example, the first few days became very angry with the images of celebrities and celebrities, saying #YoMeQuedoEnCasa. I understand that they are going to them because people are following them, but I would also stay in their homes, with pool and terrace. In other words, the confinement of most of us is much more restrictive and therefore much tougher, and cannot be frivolized. For ordinary people, for those of us who live in normal homes, it's a slut. No one is at ease in forced confinement. We should have the right to complain.

What are we afraid of?

It is curious, because in the research we are conducting, fear is associated with infection, but above all it is the elderly and vulnerable people who are afraid. There is, however, an extraordinary fear of the economic consequences.

The images that are being shown create a lot of fear. I've seen images of intensive care units ICU, I think Italians, that are scary, but most of us have never seen an ICU and surely everyone is afraid. However, irrational fear does not lead to anything. Doctors and epidemiologists say that most of the population will be infected, but we will pass it as a cold or asymptomatic. The fact is that we have to bear in mind that there may be a collapse of the system, which will harm us all.

There is fear, but there are also other emotions that we have to bear in mind and that we do not mention so much, that is, outrage. We are angry because the authorities do not do everything we believe is necessary, because they do not manage at economic or social level; we are angry with the media, because they oppress us. Other times we were emotionally tired because we were told that a wolf would come and never arrive. Now it looks like it's here, but we can also get tired. If we get tired and angry, surely the tendency is not to comply with the cuts and this can have serious consequences, so it is better to work the psychological well-being of the citizens beforehand.

Do we experience the situation differently between men and women?

Women express their emotions more, but that doesn't mean they're better at the emotional level. They just keep it. Yes. I believe that one factor is not being taken into account. Some women can adapt to teleworking more easily and, where this is not possible, many are asking for reductions in working hours or excess in order to be able to take care of them. We would have to talk about who is staying at home taking care of the children. Even when it comes to leaving, who is shopping? A lockdown is very different if you go to work or stay at home. Who cares? Women. They're not reading the book. We have to telework from home, with all the rush that this entails, and also take care of it all day long. In addition, we seem to have to do everything at once. I don't know where they want to get more arms. In addition, with teleworking it seems that we have to give way more, demonstrate that we are working and raise the level of demand. Today, my students have told me that they are very drowned with all the tasks we promise them. Yesterday, a girl, friend of my 10-year-old daughter, told me the same thing. Maybe here too we have to filter. We are working and caring at the same time. It is enough to reach what we arrive every day.

Who do we blame?

Normally, we try to associate the epidemic with one that we can identify. Ebola? Africans. HIV? Homosexuals. One of the most important pandemics was known as the 'Spanish flu'. We always try to find the ‘others’, but it is impossible when it starts to act on people like us, and what we have to do is look for a representation in this world. It's normal to find heroes, victims and villains. Heroes, health workers or scientists. Villanos, authorities, companies, media, pharmaceutical industry (the latter has appeared little, but will appear). So far, the victims have been infected people, but now they can also be victims at an economic level.

The curious thing about these investigations is that the authorities are not represented. The president of the country has assumed a single power, he has brought us home, and yet, when we talk about the coronavirus, neither local nor state authorities appear. Neither good, nor bad, nor as a reference to follow their indications. They do not seem to exist. This should be raised, because the communication strategies being used are not being very effective. Normally, in a health epidemic, authorities play a positive role at first, that of drivers, and later, a negative role. If that first positive role does not appear now, we will have to see how it ends.

In terms of communication, one of the previous investigations showed that people were very critical of the media, because they understood that the information they were giving was unidirectional, that they were selling, like everything that the authorities and the industry were selling. Faced with this, they placed social networks as an opportunity to obtain bidirectional information. In this pandemic this is fundamental. At first there were a lot of contradictions, and before them we didn't know where to find the answers. Well, now it may not, but we've surrendered. We were told it wasn't a dangerous illness, but schools closed. This creates anxiety because we don't understand what's going on. In this case, in social networks, communication has gone by our hands. People say they don't know anything about what they put in their nose. We have to learn how to put filters in front of the information. We'd be OK if we could learn to put on a filter before we talk, but maybe that's harder.

Do we forget all this?

I believe that this will mark us forever. We will have to see how it affects future generations. If there is any pest that does not have the same contagion characteristics in the coming years, will we react immeasurably? I do not know whether something will remain anecdotal or whether from now on we will react in this way to pests. Consideration should be given to whether this is the best option. OK, now decisions have been made in a different way, but in the long run we should think about what to do and how to work, both epidemiologically and socially and psychologically in the face of pandemics. I don't think we're being forgotten as soon as possible, and it might be useful to look at the issue from a more holistic perspective, to rethink how we want to live.