Does anyone follow the data anymore?
Epidemiologists and scientists tweeting "don't fear", but the media and government pushes fear anyway.
As an infectious disease epidemiologist, I follow other infectious disease epidemiologists and other scientists on twitter (on my professional account, not my “awake” account). The last few weeks have shown a lot of truth and non-fear from some of these folks… but no one seems to care.
Let’s go in chronological order, starting with Dr. Emily Wong, an infectious disease epidemiologist that actually lives in South Africa. You know, the epicenter of omicron. She hasn’t tweeted about this since, but her tweet very clearly says “don’t worry, at least not yet”.
Now, Dr. David Dowdy, an infectious disease epidemiologist from Johns Hopkins, a university pretty well known for its public health program. He has been prolific on this topic. Mind you, some of his other tweets are pretty pro-restrictions (stay home, lock down, wear your mask) and also pro-vaccine (the vaccine works, get your vaccine), but this string of tweets over the past couple of weeks are pretty anti-fear.
Last but not least, Dr. Eric Topol, who attracted a lot of attention on substack as a “featured writer”. File this under “a broken clock is right twice a day” or “a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while”.
The tag line is pretty funny though: “when it’s hard to explain”??? No, its not hard to explain. This is fully consistent with the two tweeters above, and pretty much everything that a lot of us have been saying for a long time. This thing is associated with mild symptoms. The vaccine doesn’t work against it. Masks don’t work. Restrictions don’t work. Second verse, same as the first.
So what is my point in this twitter fest? There is truth out there, even coming from the experts that wouldn’t call themselves “covid-truthers” or “anti-vaxxers” or “conspiracy theorists” or whatever stupid label you want to choose. These are actual scientists posting actual data that show this thing isn’t worth the panic that has been induced by the media. But do you hear this message? No. Instead, stores are running out of COVID tests, and people are requiring vaccine passports and negative COVID tests as a condition for entry into holiday parties.
Stop the insanity and follow the data.