Disastrous communication during the pandemic in Ecuador and the world

BACKGROUND Health communication took on another dimension during the pandemic. There was a media war during the pandemic in which official information from governments, the WHO, the big media and the networks created myths, solutions, behaviors or fears. Unlike the communication in health of past times, the sick and relatives, the deceased, the neighbors, the authorities of all kinds, the rulers, the healers, doctors, sorcerers, charlatans, had the opportunity to capture the attention. The vaccine war was lived and is still being lived in which this multimillion-dollar business also became a political weapon. Scientific information entered into a closed dispute with political information, commercial and religious information, and false information. The institutions that defend scientific-technical medicine tried to discredit those that defended traditional medicine, political medicine where the interests of the party and the ruler were above all, fanatical and religious medicine, which in many cases opposed the vaccinations, social distancing, which put rites, pilgrimages on top of official recommendations. In conclusion, communication in health with the entry of the INTERNET as the main social engine of change that even more than informing, regulated care, recommended behaviors, monitored patients and contacts, etc. The media such as radio, TV, became medical and psychological advisers, replacing doctors who have direct contact with the population. Telemedicine and telepsychology became the spearhead to face the pandemic, since places of care such as health units became sources of contagion, in addition to bad or mistaken medical practice, since the virus was unknown, its form amazing attack, and extremely short lifespan. The patients could not go to the places of care, or did not want to, there was no capacity in the units, neither physical nor operational. The collapse of public and private health networks was experienced. In the two years that the pandemic has been going on, they have become a testing laboratory for everything from vaccines to social distancing. Health communication became the key test to face this catastrophe. Health communication was riddled with false and real news, incomplete, insufficient knowledge, doubts, government, commercial, political advertising, where it was intended to cloud the audience, create behaviors, businesses, win elections, create fears. Behavior, that is, communication in mental health, had even more weight. The suffering, the dead, the doctors and hospital personnel, the police, the army, the informal, the poor had a voice, they became visible, and this generated social reactions, such as the murder of blacks in the United States, the violence against women in Latin America, the migratory wave, the wave of suicides and crimes, the wave of drug users, the wave of terror in ports, cities, and countryside. CONCLUSIONS: COMMUNICATION IN HEALTH has become more important than medicines, vaccines, quarantines or social distancing. But this pandemic has been joined by other plagues such as dengue, fires, floods, droughts with fires, prolonged frosts, and even wars like Russia's with Ukraine. In all cases, environmental communication, the one that allows us to know what happens in natural environments, and the one that allows us to know what happens in the different human environments, also became vital. This communication tends to hide or exaggerate. Behind every piece of news, knowledge or publicity there is a generator of information with their own interests, and those interests may not be what is convenient for nature, governments, politicians, the owners of the big media, religions, cultures or traditions. Consequently, environmental communication changes from one country to another, from one medium to another, from one government to another. Finally, environmental communication is going through an era in which it has much more audience but much less credibility, because it hides advertising, it is now the soul of mass information. CONCLUSION ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATION hides the publicity that benefits companies, governments, politicians, elections, candidates, rulers. Tourism and human mobility have been greatly affected by the pandemic, which has given rise to new forms of tourism such as solidarity tourism that is no longer just to help, vaccinate, learn, investigate, explore like space tourism, it is even to go to wars or catastrophes, as a soldier, curious or journalist, collaborator, voyeur, novelist and now there is nomadic tourism, to work from another country, as an employee or volunteer or illegal tourism, to go another country to see if it is possible work, live, or simply come and go, as is the tourism of the Latin American migratory waves and tourism Tourism has become the main means of transmitting diseases, from AIDS to covid, and of changing behaviors and habits, such as drug use, fashion, sexual behavior, or human rights, and of showing solidarity, arriving with timely help , etc. CONCLUSIONS ON TOURIST INFORMATION Tourist information ceased to be just publicity for places and attractions of a country, it became scientific information on the climate, illnesses, security, facilities such as accommodation, food, medical care, political situation, violence, stability, environmental deterioration, social conflict, since these variables are the ones that now influence in the decisions of tourists. INTERCULTURAL, INTERGENERATIONAL, INTERSEXUAL AND INTER RACIAL COMMUNICATION. INTER REGIONAL Ecuador is a country divided by the Andes into Coast, Sierra and Amazon. This geographic separation has created three different cultures. On the Coast the culture is identified with that of Colombia, Central America and the Caribbean, in the Andes the culture is identified with that of Peru, Bolivian and Chile, in the Amazon it is identified with the jungle cultures of the Amazonian nations such as Peru. and Brazil. In the Sierra, the Catholic religion has its greatest territory of influence since the Colony, on the Coast, there are no dominant religions, and in the Amazon, the Protestant religions compete with the Catholic religion, and with the Sycretic religions, which claim to be Christian but only they change their names to their former dioese. In the Sierra, farm and parcel agriculture predominates, in which the parcels produce vegetable products and the farms, mainly milk, potatoes, barley, now also human trafficking, which began during the Vietnam War, especially in the province del Cañar, now it is throughout the entire Sierra. On the Coast, the industrial plantations of export products such as bananas, cocoa, coffee, African palm, and the grazing of beef cattle, as well as the shrimp and fishing industry, but now it is drug trafficking and human trafficking since the year two thousand, so we have a military base in Manta and a cartel war. In the Amazon, oil exploitation, mining, have been since the colony and 1974, the most profitable activities, now there is the expansion of African palm plantations. tourism, now illegal mining and drug trafficking, human trafficking in the province of Sucumbíos. In Galapagos tourism is the main economic source and now fishing and drug trafficking, so now we have the presence of a military base on the islands At the moment the intimidating information comes from the coast, and has to do with violence, from the Sierra and has to do with the indigenous protest and from the Amazon that has to do with oil exploitation. In all cases, the information arrives manipulated, distorted, exaggerated, dramatized, hiding or magnifying something. Intersexual information focuses on femicides, racial information on the indigenous problem, intergenerational information on disabilities, and chronic and degenerative diseases such as cancer, pregnancy and abortion, drug use, gangs and youth violence. The information also focuses attention on Venezuelan immigrants and Ecuadorian emigrants who are part of the migratory waves that invade the United States. CHALLENGES The question now is how it is possible to recognize reliable information. ALTERNATIVE It is possible to recognize reliable information on health, environment, coexistence and tourism if communication centers on health, environment, coexistence and tourism are created with the universities, or the information study center for Latin America, created a network of observatories of communication in schools of medicine, psychology, journalism, environment, and tourism that invite students to be critical and analytical, creating in each community, observers and observatories of health, environment and tourism, which are at the same time, reporters, health promoters, forest rangers, and tour guides and creating an internet channel and blog that informs the community about the background of all.