More on COVID-19

Responding to this post on COVID-19, in which Peter Spitzer, MD provides an update on the current state of the relevant epidemiology, a reader notes:  I thought that Dr. Spitzer’s essay was interesting, thoughtful, well written, moderate and made a great deal of sense. Thank you for sharing.

My response:  “Moderate” is not a term scientists use, though it is, to be sure, used to describe news sources.  In science, an assertion is either correct or it’s incorrect.  Put another way, if someone has a view that runs counter to what scientists have shown to be true, that view is simply wrong.

I run into this constantly re: anthropogenic climate change.  It’s not a belief system; it’s a scientific finding.  When someone says they don’t “believe” it, what they’re really saying is that they don’t understand it.   And, of course, science couldn’t care less what some random Fax News acolyte or congressional Republican believes.

Now, of course, what’s “correct” today can be, and probably will be, laughable 100 years from now.  But it’s the best we have.