How do COVID-19 experts psychologically manage the pandemic and its effects? Using a full year of press briefings (January 2020–January 2021) from the World Health Organization (N = 126), this paper evaluated the relationship between communication patterns and COVID-19 cases and deaths. The data suggest as COVID-19 cases and deaths increased, health experts tended to think about the virus in a more formal and analytic manner. Experts also communicated with fewer cognitive processing terms, which typically indicate people “working through” a crisis. This report offers a lens into the internal states of COVID-19 experts and their organization as they gradually learned about the virus and its daily impact.

COVID-19 专家如何从心理上管理大流行及其影响？本文利用世界卫生组织 ( N  = 126)全年的新闻发布会（2020 年 1 月至 2021 年 1 月）评估了沟通模式与 COVID-19 病例和死亡之间的关系。数据表明，随着 COVID-19 病例和死亡人数的增加，卫生专家倾向于以更正式和分析性的方式考虑该病毒。专家还使用较少的认知处理术语进行交流，这些术语通常表示人们“正在解决”危机。随着 COVID-19 专家及其组织逐渐了解该病毒及其日常影响，这份报告提供了他们内部状态的视角。