The U.S. has long funded its own PSA's (and states have too). But now that broadcast TV isn't much of a thing, that's gone. We have defunded our own public broadcasting system (which mostly kids watched).
It's a big problem. I've had three batches of students since the pandemic began and for the most part, they were shocked to learn how many people in their own county had died, how many had CoVid, what ethnic groups they were, what jobs they had, etc. They knew nothing about it. Zilch.
They also don't know the symptoms. Even now, on the last quiz where I threw in a few symptom questions, a lot of them missed some of the main symptoms. In fact, congestion or runny nose is not, according to my students, a symptom of CoVid. This is after they were supposed to watch several videos and read some brief articles. Headaches don't count either. Some of them couldn't pick the right definition for the word "fatigue" so it's no wonder that they didn't think that was a symptom.
Given that young people aged 18-25 are a big vector where I live, it's concerning that they know so little. Most claim to be staying home as much as possible and wearing masks if they go out. The vast majority (~90%) live with their parents...they say they don't want to get their parents sick.
I still have some weeks to go with the current batch and the numbers are improving on those simple test questions, so by the final exam I do hope to have some of it drilled into them.
