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It isn鈥檛 often that the United States takes public health advice from West Africa. But as the COVID-19 pandemic has ripped through societies unused to dealing with massive disease outbreaks, experts around the world are beginning to lean on the lessons from past epidemics听鈥� in particular, the 2014 to 2016 Ebola outbreak.

For instance, Massachusetts recently began an aggressive program to trace the contacts of every new case of coronavirus in the state, and then help them isolate to stop the disease from spreading. That project is led by Partners in Health, a medical charity that has honed its skills in contact tracing around the world, including during West Africa鈥檚 deadly Ebola outbreak that killed more than 11,000 people, largely in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone.

鈥淲e鈥檙e working on a method here that is not a theory,鈥� Gov. Charlie Baker told the Boston Globe last month. 鈥淚t鈥檚 been done, and been done well in many other places.鈥�

Editor鈥檚 note: As a public service,听all our coronavirus coverage听is free. No paywall.

Unlike coronavirus contact tracing done in east Asia, however, the Massachusetts program is distinctly low-tech 鈥� relying not on digital surveillance but on one-on-one phone conversations between contact tracers and possible carriers.

And that, experts say, marks one of the most important lessons the fight against COVID-19 can learn from the fight against Ebola: It isn鈥檛 only medical technology that wins the war against disease. Sometimes, it also takes something much simpler听鈥� compassion.

鈥淏uilding ties to communities is so important to the work we do, whether it鈥檚 in Massachusetts or Sierra Leone,鈥� says John Welch, co-lead for Partners in Health鈥檚 contact tracing program in Massachusetts. 鈥淪itting with people and asking, do you understand what this virus is and what you need to do to stay safe? Do you have the resources to stay home? That kind of knowledge happens through human connection at a person-to-person level.鈥�

Those lessons seem especially pertinent in the United States in recent weeks, as thousands of Americans around the country have participated in mass protests in defiance of lockdown orders.

鈥淲e saw similar protests in West Africa鈥� during the Ebola outbreak, and for similar reasons, says Khadija Alia Bah, a Sierra Leonean anthropologist who worked for the Ebola response in her country. In both the U.S. and West Africa, people received confusing, sometimes contradictory information on how to keep themselves safe. And their orders to stay home came from people they didn鈥檛 trust to keep their best interests in mind.

鈥淚鈥檓 gonna do what I got to do to feed my family,鈥� one protester in Pennsylvania told the BBC, explaining why he had defied the state鈥檚 lockdown order. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 have any food and we鈥檙e scared,鈥� a resident of Liberia鈥檚 capital, Monrovia, told Reuters during anti-lockdown protests there in 2014.

The protests weren鈥檛 exactly the same, of course. West African protests frequently听were fueled by police violence used to enforce lockdowns. The American protests, meanwhile, have been deeply partisan, spurred on by encouragement from President Donald Trump. But they share an important common thread, says Nonhlanhla Tryphine Ngwabi, a Zimbabwean nurse who worked as an infection prevention and control officer for the World Health Organization in Sierra Leone during the West African Ebola outbreak.

鈥淲hen people feel they are being treated like children, they treat responders like the enemy,鈥� she says. 鈥淲e forget over and over this simple lesson we learned in West Africa: Listen to communities. Listen to their fears. Listen to why they are skeptical. And then show them that their concerns matter.鈥�

Familiar faces

Like COVID-19, Ebola didn鈥檛 only make people ill. It warped the shape of daily life. Orders came from far away commanding that children be pulled out of school and businesses closed. Lockdowns and curfews became commonplace. The sick and dying, meanwhile, had to be isolated far from their families, scrambling what people understood about how to take care of the people they loved.

Those abrupt changes to daily life scared and confused people, Ms. Bah says, especially when they were delivered by officials who spoke the cold language of infection rates and confirmed cases 鈥� rather than discussing the disease鈥檚 impact in human terms.

鈥淲hat experts tend to forget is that diseases live in people, and that it is people who must be at the heart of every disease response,鈥� she says.

And to reach people, she and others say, you must go through leaders they trust.

鈥淚f you involve local communities and their leaders directly, they鈥檙e more likely to follow the rules,鈥� says Kou Gbaintor-Johnson, a nurse, researcher, and community organizer in Monrovia, Liberia.

That might mean, for instance,听hiring people in hard-hit communities听to work as contact tracers or to care for the sick, as health organizations did during the recent Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Or it might mean devoting more resources to training religious leaders, teachers, and other community leaders on how to provide clear, accurate information to those around them.

During Liberia鈥檚 Ebola outbreak, for instance, Ms. Gbaintor-Johnson was the community chairperson for a neighborhood in Monrovia. As the disease spread, she met with other community leaders and they made a plan. They鈥檇 canvas the area themselves, explaining one-on-one why the disease was dangerous, and that it was important to abide by the rules authorities had put in place to stop its spread. And then, she says, they listened to people鈥檚 concerns. If they were worried they鈥檇 go hungry because they couldn鈥檛 work, Ms. Gbaintor-Johnson鈥檚 team considered how to get them food. If they were scared for the future, she leveled with them: She was too.

鈥淚f people feel like we鈥檙e in this fight together, they鈥檙e going to try to do their best,鈥� she says.听

Confusion and inequality

In many countries, experts on the Ebola outbreak in West Africa say, the information given to the public on COVID-19 has been muddled and inconsistent, and the result has been fear and uncertainty. In the U.S., for instance, President Trump has publicly questioned the effectiveness of lockdowns and offered his own, scientifically suspect, potential treatments for COVID-19.听In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson initially flouted social-distancing advice. Soon after agreeing to impose stricter measures, he himself was diagnosed with COVID-19.

鈥淲hen you see people rebelling [against restrictions to stop COVID-19], what鈥檚 really happening is a problem of trust,鈥� says Ms. Ngwabi, the infection control and prevention officer during the Ebola outbreak. 鈥淧eople rebel when they feel voiceless.鈥�

Experts see other lessons, too.

For instance, disease outbreaks often become a pretext for racism and xenophobia, says Kevin J.A. Thomas, a Sierra Leonean sociologist at Pennsylvania State University who wrote a book on African immigrants in Dallas during the Ebola crisis. In both the Ebola and coronavirus outbreaks, groups seen as close to the disease鈥檚 origins 鈥� West Africans and East Asians, respectively 鈥� have been the targets of hate crimes and discrimination.听

For Mr. Welch, with Partners in Health, another important lesson from the Ebola outbreak is that infectious diseases never strike members of a society equally.

鈥淭he poor and the marginalized will always suffer in ways that are innumerable and preventable,鈥� he says. Almost everywhere in the world, he notes, poverty is a kind of preexisting condition, limiting people鈥檚 access to accurate information and good health care, and often making them distrustful of those in power. 鈥淣ow is the time to shine a spotlight on why that is, and get to addressing the root causes,鈥� he says.

But even if COVID-19 is no social equalizer, experts hope it could be a source of global empathy. In the future, perhaps countries fighting disease outbreaks won鈥檛 be looked upon with distant pity, Ms. Bah says, or worse, with disdain for resisting the epidemic鈥檚 strange 鈥渞ules.鈥�

鈥淣o one has to imagine these fears anymore,鈥� she says, 鈥渂ecause we have all lived them.鈥�

Editor鈥檚 note: An earlier version of this article mischaracterized New Zealand鈥檚 contact tracing program.