Fundamental beliefs are not supported with scientific and epidemiology data. Data from around the World are gathered and analyzed by the best laboratories in both the public and private institutions. New data can produce more accurate facts and that will happen with this virus.
'Best' is awfully subjective- the CDC is definitely not the 'best', and neither are organizations like the WHO, the organization that kicked all this off on the global scale. Science should-
should- be apolitical, and by their very nature neither of those organizations meets that standard in the slightest. And the 'new data' is not disproving anything I noted, is it?
Much of the data in the US- collected by politicized (both aisles, mind you) state health departments and local hospitals- is almost assuredly bad because of the financial incentives they have in emergency budgets, and from the simple desire to 'do something', an incentive too many people overlook in otherwise boring lives of bureaucrats. There must always be context for any predictive model or analysis, and a way to account for that. Always.
Even 'trustworthy' data is almost always presented without context. For instance, the data on the virus 'living on surfaces' was never presented (not just in the media, but even in many academic studies!) with information on how long it was actually infectious, or what the viral load required for infection was. Deaths are not counted appropriately, or are counted differently depending on state- how do you normalize that and get any kind of accurate model or make any kind of recommendation? Mask usage effectiveness has been a scattershot all along, including from the 'scientific' CDC. Can you argue that 'new data' is showing new recommendations? If that's what you want, you can, but the CDC itself has flip-flopped all over the place with its public-facing side through many things, which leads me to believe they have.... bad data. I believe most people in government want to do what's right, but if you're starting from garbage what can you really do?
Your accusation was that I was not 'scientific'. I am attempting to be scientific in that I believe in a process for collecting, cleaning, and using data to make decisions and recommendations. I know that that process has not been followed, and I know that because I can read the background on the data that's often being used. I also know that the financially-driven abandonment of the most basic aspects of the scientific method are being accelerated- I see that every day already- and that what today stands as 'science' is way too often nothing but one goober's semi-expert analysis.
You didn't note what you, did, either- was it data analysis? Prediction modeling? Research? Marketing? IT?
