This morning’s Washington Post front page tries to keep the coronavirus lockdown going based on reports of increasing cases in some states. But Obama CDC director Tom Friedman debunks this hysteria plus has some other interesting thoughts and admissions.
Here‘s Friedman’s column.
Let’s look at a couple of his points a little more closely.
Friedman first undercuts the WaPo headline about cases.
So hysteriating based on cases is “pointless.”
Next Friedman admits that the point of the always-wrong epidemiological models is not to be accurate but to get you to change your behavior.
So Friedman looks at epidemiology modeling as authoritative-sounding lie to achieve a particular goal — by the way, a goal of the epidemiologist, which might not be the anyone else’s goal or the best goal.