The Problem With Following The Science

 Former colleagues Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein separately take on some of the problems in how we talk about "following the science." This article from the Times sums it up nicely. There is a broad disconnect between how scientists talk about data and how the rest of us understand data. Vaccines are not 100% effective. Nothing is. A scientist would say - rightly - that there is not 100% certainty that the sun will rise tomorrow. Still, you should keep flossing and applying sunscreen. 

If you have had both doses, the current question is whether you can get infected but not sick. In a few cases, it appears you can get an infection, thereby spreading it to others, but overwhelmingly, you will not even get an infection. To most people's ears, "infection" and "sick" are the same thing. So they hear that if you get the vaccine, you could still get sick. That's just a vanishingly small chance of happening.

Klein similarly takes on a Covid policy gadfly, Alex Tabarrok, who thinks we pretty much botched a great many aspects of our Covid response from Day One. Some of that was simply that we haven't had to do this since 1918. A great deal of it was Trump's attack on medical authority coupled with our fractious politics. 

The big issue Tabarrok has is how the FDA and other agencies required caution. This is similar to the debate over whether you can get infected after having had a vaccine. The infection answer seems to be: almost certainly not, but there is a slim possibility of asymptomatic infection. But an FDA scientist would say: "What is someone who has been vaccinated DOES get symptomatic Covid and even dies? We don't have enough data to say that can't happen." Which is true!  And irrelevant to the process of getting 80% of Americans vaccinated. The average person thinks "Why should I get the vaccine if I will just get sick anyway?" Or "Why should I get the vaccine if I still have to mask and distance?"

Basic scientific illiteracy is at the root of much of this, also a mental blind spot on probabilities. Add in the robust partisanship of...everything, and I don't know the answer. People like Tabarrok are right that the FDA and other agencies screwed up testing, which is hugely important in controlling spread. If we had universal, at-home/at-work testing we could catch the infected before the become symptomatic (if they even become symptomatic) and prevent spread. But we haven't done that, and it's hurt. The reason countries like South Korea have done so much better has been almost entirely testing. But those at-home tests are a little inaccurate. Which is fine. You aren't trying to catch everything all the time. And if someone has to stay home from work for a few days because of a false positive...Also fine!  

We expect science to provide miracles, but really they provide probabilities. And most of us don't understand either.