2. Mechanics of crises

Many health crises combine the following elements:

• a real or suspected health threat affecting a large population;

• great emotion and media interest;

• an uncertainty that explains the difficulty of making a diagnosis, whether in terms of the nature or scale of the problems;

• value conflicts;

• negligence, delay or inappropriate reaction;

• a loss of stakeholder confidence.

In this section, we analyze possible management errors, which are far from always deliberate mistakes. To understand these errors, we must first highlight the role of uncertainty.