Here's a good thread about the "no data" fallacy. (You don't have to agree with it's conclusions—point is the epistemology). A bureaucratic "no data" doesn't equal scientific "no data". Imperfect, incomplete, uncertain yes. "No data" is almost never true.https://twitter.com/robertwiblin/status/1345800480144945152 …
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Policy (and thus public health) will necessarily involve working with imperfect, incomplete data, and (sometimes terrible) trade-offs. Mike Ryan of WHO had it right. "If you need to be right before you move, you will never win." Hence all these debates.https://twitter.com/i/status/1346073730510954498 …
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I'm not arguing here about any particular debate but the fallacy that's plagued a lot of this discussion. There is of course stronger/weaker and different types of evidence, different trade-offs and calculations etc. But "no data" is almost never true, and yet gets used a lot.
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I've been thinking that, epistemologically, that might be one of the most important lessons of last year. An implied philosophical frequentism that has plagued our analysis/action/communication.https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1341452907175170050 …
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(And please don't @ me as if this is an argument about the merits of a particular vaccine scheduling or dosing. I'm talking about epistemology. There are people with impeccable credentials making important points on all sides of that & decisions will be made with imperfect data!)
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Yep. The BBC story then just repeats the Chinese official lie that there had "been no human-to-human transmission" whereas anyone familiar with these viruses, the region & the Chinese government patterns knew this to be likely false and acted accordingly.https://twitter.com/coreyspowell/status/1346107331847860230 …
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Also, on the vaccine debate, this is an excellent thread. (No, it won't give you an answer but explains why we are where we are, differences between individual results & population-level questions and makes a strong case for adapting fast as we go along).https://twitter.com/IDEpiPhD/status/1345176257995165696 …
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SARS but worse: not contained in healthcare, and temperature screening not effective due to spreading during the incubation period. This was suspected very early on.
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And virtually everyone in places such as Hong Kong that knew SARS. A random person off the street in HK in mid-January was already executing a better plan for covid than top US health folks were months later. A big point about epistemology is denial of "foreign" knowledge.
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The idea of wearing masks against Covid was not arcane or bold in January -- unless you were resistant to learning from Asia. Just check out the early emails flying back and forth -- anyone connected to Asia had a much better idea of the problem than insular NA/Eur folks.
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