海角大神

Should kids go back to school?听

One听South Korean contact-tracing study suggests that is a bad idea. In analyzing 5,706 COVID-19 patients and their 59,073 contacts, it concluded 鈥� albeit with a significant caveat 鈥� that 10- to 19-year-olds were the most contagious age group within their household.

A study out of Iceland, meanwhile, found that children under 10 are less likely to get infected and less likely than adults to become ill if they are infected. Coauthor K谩ri Stef谩nsson, who is CEO of a genetics company tracking the disease鈥檚 spread, said the study听didn鈥檛 find a single instance听of a child infecting a parent.

So when leaders explain their decision on whether to send kids back to school by saying they鈥檙e 鈥渇ollowing the science,鈥� citizens could be forgiven for asking what science they鈥檙e referring to exactly 鈥� and how sure they are that it鈥檚 right.听

But it鈥檚 become difficult to ask such questions amid the highly polarized debate around pandemic policies.听While areas of consensus have emerged since the pandemic first hit the United States in March, significant gaps remain.听Those uncertainties have opened the door for contrarians to gain traction in popular thought.

Some Americans see them as playing a crucial role, challenging a fear-driven groupthink that is inhibiting scientific inquiry, driving unconstitutional restrictions on individual freedom and enterprise, and failing to grapple with the full societal cost of shutting down businesses, churches, and schools. Public health experts who see shutdowns as crucial to saving lives are critical of such actors, due in part to fears that they are abetting right-wing resistance to government restrictions. They have also voiced criticism that some contrarians appear driven by profit or political motives more than genuine concern about public health.

The deluge of studies and competing interpretations have left citizens in a tough spot, especially when data or conclusions are shared on Twitter or TV without full context 鈥� like a handful of puzzle pieces thrown in your face, absent any box top picture to help you fit them together.听

鈥淵ou can鈥檛 expect the public to go through all the science, so you rely on people of authority, someone whom you trust, to parse that for you,鈥� says听Aleszu Bajak, a science and data journalist who teaches at Northeastern University in Boston. 鈥淏ut now you have more than just the scientists听in their ivory tower throwing out all of this information. You have competing pundits, with different incentives, drawing on different science of varying quality.鈥�

The uncertainties have also posed a challenge for policymakers, who haven鈥檛 had the luxury of waiting for the full arc of scientific inquiry to be completed.

鈥淭he fact is, science, like everything else, is uncertain 鈥� particularly when it comes to predictions,鈥� says John Holdren, who served as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy for the duration of President Barack Obama鈥檚 eight-year tenure. 鈥淚 think seasoned, experienced decision-makers understand that. They understand that there will be uncertainties, even in the scientific inputs to their decision-making process, and they have to take those into account and they have to seek approaches that are resilient to uncertain outcomes.鈥澨�

Some say that in an effort to reassure citizens that shutdowns were implemented based on scientific input, policymakers weren鈥檛 transparent enough about the underlying uncertainties.听

鈥淲e鈥檝e heard constantly that politicians are following the science. That鈥檚 good, of course, but ... especially at the beginning, science is tentative, it changes, it鈥檚 evolving fast, it鈥檚 uncertain,鈥� Prof. Sir Paul Nurse, director of the Francis Crick Institute in London, recently told a British Parliament committee. One of the founding partners of his independent institute is Imperial College, whose researchers鈥� conclusions were a leading driver of U.S. and British government shutdowns.听

鈥淵ou can鈥檛 just have a single top line saying we鈥檙e following science,鈥� he adds. 鈥淚t has to be more dealing with what we know about the science and what we don鈥檛.鈥澨�

A focus on uncertainty

One scientist who talks a lot about unknowns is John Ioannidis, a highly cited professor of medicine, epidemiology, and population health at Stanford University in California.

Dr. Ioannidis, who has made a career out of poking holes in his colleagues鈥� research, agrees that masks and social distancing are effective but says there are open questions about how best to implement them. He has also persistently questioned just how deadly COVID-19 is and to what extent shutdowns are affecting mental health, household transmission to older family members, and the well-being of those with non-COVID-19-related听conditions.

It鈥檚 very difficult, he says, to do randomized trials for things like how to reopen, and different countries and U.S. states have done things in different ways.

鈥淔or each one of these decisions, action plans 鈥� people said we鈥檙e using the best science,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut how can it be that they鈥檙e all using the best science when they鈥檙e so different?鈥�

Many scientists say they and their colleagues have been open about the uncertainties,听despite a highly polarized debate around the pandemic and the 2020 election season ramping up.听

鈥淥ne of the remarkable things about this pandemic is the extent to which many people in the scientific community are explicit about what鈥檚 uncertain,鈥� says Marc Lipsitch,听a professor of epidemiology and director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health who is working on a study about how biases can affect COVID-19 research. 鈥淭here has been a sort of hard core of scientists, even with different policy predispositions, who have been insistent on that.鈥�

鈥淚n some ways the politicized nature has made people more aware of the uncertainties,鈥� adds Professor Lipsitch, who says Twitter skeptics push him and his colleagues to strengthen their arguments. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 a good voice to have in the back of your head.鈥澨�

For the Harvard doctor, Alex Berenson is not that voice. But a growing number of frustrated Americans have gravitated toward the former New York Times reporter's听brash, unapologetic challenging of prevailing narratives. His following on Twitter has grown from around 10,000 to more than 182,000 and counting.听

Mr. Berenson,听who investigated big business before leaving The New York Times in 2010 to write spy novels, dives into government data, quotes from scientific studies, and takes to Twitter daily to rail against what he sees as a dangerous overreaction driven by irrational fear and abetted by a liberal media agenda and corporate interests 鈥� particularly tech companies,听whose earnings have soared听during the shutdowns. He refers satirically to those advocating government restrictions as 鈥淭eam Apocalypse.鈥�

Dr. Lipsitch says that while public health experts pushing for lockdown like himself could be considered hawks while contrarians like Mr. Berenson could be considered doves, his 鈥渘ame-calling鈥� doesn鈥檛 take into account the fact that most scientists have at least a degree of nuance.听鈥淚t鈥檚 really sort of unsophisticated to say there are two camps, but it serves some people鈥檚 interest to demonize the other side,鈥� he says.

Mr. Berenson, the author of a controversial 2019 book arguing that marijuana increases the risk of mental illness and violence, has been accused of cherry-picking data and conflating correlation and causation.听Amazon initially blocked publication of his booklet 鈥淯nreported Truths about COVID-19 and Lockdowns: Part 1鈥� until Elon Musk got wind of it and called out the tech giant on Twitter. Mr. Berenson prevailed and recently released Part 2 on the platform, which has already become Amazon鈥檚 No. 1 best-seller among history of science and medicine e-books.

He strives to broaden the public's contextual understanding of fatality rates, emphasizing that the vast majority of deaths occur among the elderly; in Italy, for instance, the median age听of people who died is听81.听He calls听into question the reliability of COVID-19 death tolls,听which according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can be categorized as such even without a positive test if the disease is assumed to have caused or even contributed to a death.

Earlier this spring, when a prominent model was forecasting overwhelmed hospitals in New York, he听pointed out that their projection was quadruple that of the actual need.听

鈥淣obody had the guts or brains to ask 鈥� why is your model off by a factor of four today, and you made it last week?鈥� says Mr. Berenson, referring to the University of Washington鈥檚听Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation projection in early April and expressing disappointment that his former colleagues in the media are not taking a harder look at such questions.听鈥淚 think unfortunately people have been blinded by ideology.鈥�

Politicization of science

Amid a sense of urgency, fear, and frustration with Americans who refuse to fall in line with government restrictions as readily as their European or especially Asian counterparts, Mr. Berenson and Dr. Ioannidis have faced blowback for airing questions about those restrictions and the science behind them.

Mr. Berenson鈥檚 book installments have prompted criticism that he鈥檚 looking for profits at the expense of public health, which he has denied. Dr. Ioannidis鈥� involvement in an April antibodies study in Santa Clara, California, which purported to show that COVID-19 is much less deadly than was widely believed was discredited by other scientists due to questions about the accuracy of the test used and a BuzzFeed report that it was partially funded by JetBlue Airways鈥� cofounder. Dr. Ioannidis says those questions were fully addressed within two weeks in a revised version that showed with far more extensive data that the test was accurate, and adds he had been unaware of the $5,000 donation, which came through the Stanford development office and was anonymized.

The dismay grew when BuzzFeed News reported in July that a month before the Santa Clara study, he had offered to convene a small group of world-renowned scientists to meet with President Donald Trump and help him solve the pandemic 鈥渂y intensifying efforts to understand the denominator of infected people (much larger than what is documented to-date)鈥� and developing a more targeted, data-driven approach than long-term shutdowns, which he said would听鈥渏eopardiz[e]听so many lives,鈥� according to听emails obtained by BuzzFeed.听

While the right has seized on Dr. Ioannidis鈥� views and some scientists say it鈥檚 hard not to conclude that his work is driven by a political agenda, the Greek doctor maintains that partisanship is antithetical to the scientific method, which requires healthy skepticism, among other things.

鈥淓ven the word 鈥榮cience鈥� has been politicized. It鈥檚 very sad,鈥� he says, observing听that in听the current environment, scientific conclusions are used to shame, smear, and 鈥渃ancel鈥� the opposite view. 鈥淚 think it鈥檚 very unfortunate to use science as a silencer of dissent.鈥�

The average citizen, he adds, is filtering COVID-19 debates through their belief systems, media sources, and political ideology, which can leave science at a disadvantage in the public square. 鈥淪cience hasn鈥檛 been trained to deal with these kinds of powerful companions that are far more vocal and better armed to penetrate into social discourse,鈥� says Dr. Ioannidis.

The polarization has been fueled in part by absolutist pundits. In a recent week, 鈥淭he Rachel Maddow Show鈥� on MSNBC daily hammered home the rising rate in cases, trumpeted the daily death toll, and quoted Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, while 鈥淭he Tucker Carlson Show鈥� on Fox News did not once mention government data, featuring instead anecdotes from business owners who have been affected by the shutdowns and calling into question the authority of unelected figures such as Dr. Fauci.

Fed on different media diets, it鈥檚 not surprising that partisan views on the severity of the pandemic have diverged further in recent months, with 85% of Democrats seeing it as a major threat 鈥� nearly double the percent of Republicans, according to听a Pew Research poll from mid-July. And in a related division that predates the pandemic,听another听Pew poll听from February showed that Republicans are less likely to support scientists taking an active role in social policy matters 鈥撎齤ust 43% compared with 73% for Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents.

鈥淚f you have more of a populist type of worldview, where you are concerned that elites and scientists and officials act in their own interests first, it becomes very easy to make assumptions that they are doing something to control the population,鈥� says Prof. Asheley Landrum, a psychologist at Texas Tech University who specializes in science communication.

Beyond following the science

Determining what exactly 鈥渢he science鈥� says is only one part of the equation; figuring out precisely how to 鈥渇ollow鈥� it poses another set of challenges for policymakers on questions like whether to send students back to school.

鈥淓ven if you had all the science pinned down, there are still some tough value judgments about the dangers of multiplying the pandemic or the dangers of keeping kids at home,鈥� says Dr. Holdren, President Obama鈥檚 science adviser,听an engineer and physicist who now co-directs the science, technology, and public policy program at Harvard Kennedy School.

Dr. Lipsitch echoes that point and offers an example of two schools that both have a 10% risk of an outbreak. In one, where there are older students from high-income families who are more capable of learning remotely, leaders may decide that the 10% risk isn鈥檛 worth reopening. But in another school with the same assessed risk, where the students are younger and many depend on free and reduced lunch, a district may decide the risk is a trade-off they鈥檙e willing to make in support of the students鈥� education and well-being.

鈥淔ollowing the science just isn鈥檛 enough,鈥� says Dr. Lipsitch. 鈥淚t鈥檚 incumbent on responsible leaders to use science to do the reasoning about how to do the best thing given your values, but it鈥檚 not an answer.鈥�

Editor鈥檚 note:听As a public service, we have removed our paywall for听all pandemic-related stories.