Academia: What we did wrong with Covid-19

[nonntt]

If you read general interest message boards, listen to Fox news, click on YouTube links, or read social media, you've probably seen an Internet rando/your brother-in-law write something like this:

"But Dr. Jim Jones, professor of pharmacy at Stanford, shows that the coronavirus isn't that dangerous, or is not as deadly as the flu, or certainly doesn't warrant the huge economic damage that stay-home orders are causing."

And if you click the link, sure enough, the academic credentials check out and Dr. Jones's argument has been summarized more or less accurately. I haven't made a systematic effort to list them, but I've seen at least a half-dozen cases like this so far, including people who are leaders of their respective fields (except their fields are not, you know, epidemiology). Our country has a massive problem with disinformation, and academia is not always part of the solution.

There are enough cases already that we can't just dismiss them as exceptions. We try to teach our students how to recognize and use reliable sources of information, but academia has structural issues that are contributing to the problem.

• We've stressed the importance of outreach and showing the relevance of our fields. We need to remember the opposing virtue of shutting up and listening during a worldwide crisis.
• We valorize counter-intuitive findings, tearing down others' publications around the seminar table and shaking up accepted wisdom of the "Aphra Benn wrote Hamlet!" type. The principal offenders this time are themselves scientists. Hot take: Disputing the accepted wisdom in a pandemic kills people.
• We love interdisciplinarity and breaking down knowledge silos. We need to relearn respect for people with deep knowledge and experience in the fields that have been our passions for a good 3 weeks now.
• A position at an elite R1 gives you instant credibility both within and outside academia. We need the people in those positions to accept the responsibilities that come with that privilege.
• "But what about Liberty?" is distracting whataboutism. Liberty U. will have to have its own reckoning. The academic coronavirus skeptics are at Stanford, Yale, and other research schools.
• Collegiality and respectful discourse is important. But when lives are at stake, it's better that someone is willing to say, "Dr. Jones is an ignorant blowhard whose policy recommendations will result in tens of thousands of needless deaths."

A lot of the people who solve this crisis will be academics and I'm thankful for them, and the system that trained them and gives them the chance to research. But the crisis is also exposing some flaws with our academic culture.

[mamselle]

I work for a group which has highly placed academics, anti-academics, two Liberty grads, and a number of decently-placed pastors and priests from a variety of denominational backgrounds.

As a sample, they include people who think they are well-served by the current administration, and others who are horrified by it.

They do still manage to speak very respectfully to each other, not disparage each other, and find constructive areas of endeavor within which to work and fulfill the group's mission.

But I'm aware of how rare that is: the communication happens because the leader is really good at creating a level of acceptance and valuation for each person, and encourages whiffs of variety where possible while maintaining a focus on the main goals, etc.

It's that across-the-aisle collegiality that is going to save us--if it can bridge the polarizing forces of "I'm right," "no, I'm right!" we can get to something like parity and a peaceful way to address the truths and fears we need to deal with.

We must all hang together, or as Franklin predicted, we shall most assuredly hang separately.

M. 

[polly_mer]

Your example doesn't show what you think it does, nonntt.  Instead, it shows exactly the same fallacy for which you criticize the Internet randos: picking one easy soundbite and spouting off instead of trying to learn enough about a complex situation to make an informed decision.

Your points have minimal credibility for those who know a fair amount about higher education and have spent more than three weeks thinking about the problem.

You've latched on to what happens in your tiny part of academia or resonates with you from some mass media soundbites instead of actually knowing something from peer-reviewed research or at least extensive discussion for decades with relevant parties from a large cross-section of academia.

You don't actually know enough about either problem, but you've written an opinion piece and expect to be taken seriously by those who know.

[mahagonny]

Your example doesn't show what you think it does, nonntt.  Instead, it shows exactly the same fallacy for which you criticize the Internet randos: picking one easy soundbite and spouting off instead of trying to learn enough about a complex situation to make an informed decision.

Your points have minimal credibility for those who know a fair amount about higher education and have spent more than three weeks thinking about the problem.

You've latched on to what happens in your tiny part of academia or resonates with you from some mass media soundbites instead of actually knowing something from peer-reviewed research or at least extensive discussion for decades with relevant parties from a large cross-section of academia.

You don't actually know enough about either problem, but you've written an opinion piece and expect to be taken seriously by those who know.

And you expect your 'rebuttal' without even one specific observation criticized to be taken seriously...why exactly?

[Caracal]

If you read general interest message boards, listen to Fox news, click on YouTube links, or read social media, you've probably seen an Internet rando/your brother-in-law write something like this:

"But Dr. Jim Jones, professor of pharmacy at Stanford, shows that the coronavirus isn't that dangerous, or is not as deadly as the flu, or certainly doesn't warrant the huge economic damage that stay-home orders are causing."

And if you click the link, sure enough, the academic credentials check out and Dr. Jones's argument has been summarized more or less accurately. I haven't made a systematic effort to list them, but I've seen at least a half-dozen cases like this so far, including people who are leaders of their respective fields (except their fields are not, you know, epidemiology). Our country has a massive problem with disinformation, and academia is not always part of the solution.

There are enough cases already that we can't just dismiss them as exceptions. We try to teach our students how to recognize and use reliable sources of information, but academia has structural issues that are contributing to the problem.

• We've stressed the importance of outreach and showing the relevance of our fields. We need to remember the opposing virtue of shutting up and listening during a worldwide crisis.
• We valorize counter-intuitive findings, tearing down others' publications around the seminar table and shaking up accepted wisdom of the "Aphra Benn wrote Hamlet!" type. The principal offenders this time are themselves scientists. Hot take: Disputing the accepted wisdom in a pandemic kills people.
• We love interdisciplinarity and breaking down knowledge silos. We need to relearn respect for people with deep knowledge and experience in the fields that have been our passions for a good 3 weeks now.
• A position at an elite R1 gives you instant credibility both within and outside academia. We need the people in those positions to accept the responsibilities that come with that privilege.
• "But what about Liberty?" is distracting whataboutism. Liberty U. will have to have its own reckoning. The academic coronavirus skeptics are at Stanford, Yale, and other research schools.
• Collegiality and respectful discourse is important. But when lives are at stake, it's better that someone is willing to say, "Dr. Jones is an ignorant blowhard whose policy recommendations will result in tens of thousands of needless deaths."

A lot of the people who solve this crisis will be academics and I'm thankful for them, and the system that trained them and gives them the chance to research. But the crisis is also exposing some flaws with our academic culture.

This seems like the kind of problem that can't actually be solved. A doctorate just means that someone finished their comps and defended a thesis. It doesn't make you wise, humble or aware of your own limitations. Even in your own field, it doesn't even make you careful of conscientious. Probably most of can think of people with fancy jobs and work that gets a lot of attention, but who are regarded in their own subfield with contempt.

[pigou]

That said, blindly following the "expert consensus" can get people killed, too. The World Health Organization has for a couple months now advocated against the use of masks. This even though there is evidence that masks greatly reduce the exhaust from breathing and, obviously, from coughing. Different guidance could absolutely have reduced the rate at which COVID is spreading. The CDC at least has reversed its guidance now, but recommends people only wear cloth masks. Except the same studies find that cloth masks don't significantly reduce exhaust: they're by and large ineffective. I guess they give people the sense that they're doing "something," but that's ridiculous for the basis of policy.

Surgical masks, incidentally, work really well. They're merely not recommended because there's a shortage -- in the US, not everywhere. And you can thank anti price-gauging laws for much of that shortage: it's illegal to charge substantially inflated prices to US customers, but not to international customers. So the masks get exported instead.

Notably, the mask guidelines have supposedly been revised "in light of new information." But even a cursory search on mask efficacy suggests this has been established for 10-20 years. So what's this new information? Preventing droplets from flying through the air is not cutting edge material science.

[Cheerful]

Notably, the mask guidelines have supposedly been revised "in light of new information." But even a cursory search on mask efficacy suggests this has been established for 10-20 years. So what's this new information? Preventing droplets from flying through the air is not cutting edge material science.

Isn't the so-called "new info"* the fact that the virus can be spread by asymptomatic individuals and that there are likely more such transmissions than estimated originally?

*"newly-released info" is probably more accurate. The story of the masks has reduced people's trust in CDC and WHO info.

[pigou]

Notably, the mask guidelines have supposedly been revised "in light of new information." But even a cursory search on mask efficacy suggests this has been established for 10-20 years. So what's this new information? Preventing droplets from flying through the air is not cutting edge material science.

Isn't the so-called "new info"* the fact that the virus can be spread by asymptomatic individuals and that there are likely more such transmissions than estimated originally?

*"newly-released info" is probably more accurate. The story of the masks has reduced people's trust in CDC and WHO info.

Wasn't it always known (or at least highly probable) that it takes a few days before symptoms appear and that pre-symptomatic people could infect others? If so, that's already an argument for masks. They cost 20 cents a piece at retail and it's very easy to retool for surgical mask production (and, in fact, that's being done all over the world).

Also, how strong is the evidence for spread through asymptomatic people? There's got to be a lot of false positives. Do we know about the sensitivity/specificity of the tests that are being used? I can't seem to find anything on this...

[namazu]

Also, how strong is the evidence for spread through asymptomatic people? There's got to be a lot of false positives. Do we know about the sensitivity/specificity of the tests that are being used? I can't seem to find anything on this...

There's pretty decent evidence for spread by asymptomatic/presymptomatic/very mildly symptomatic people at this point.  Assays do vary quite a bit in reliability/validity (though false negatives appear to be much more common than false positives).  But I'm pretty well convinced that people can spread the virus without being obviously ill.

From the CDC's page recommending face masks, here are the "recent studies" they cite:

•     Rothe C, Schunk M, Sothmann P, et al. Transmission of 2019-nCoV Infection from an Asymptomatic Contact in Germany. The New England journal of medicine. 2020;382(10):970-971.
•     Zou L, Ruan F, Huang M, et al. SARS-CoV-2 Viral Load in Upper Respiratory Specimens of Infected Patients. The New England journal of medicine. 2020;382(12):1177-1179.
•     Pan X, Chen D, Xia Y, et al. Asymptomatic cases in a family cluster with SARS-CoV-2 infection. The Lancet Infectious diseases. 2020.
•     Bai Y, Yao L, Wei T, et al. Presumed Asymptomatic Carrier Transmission of COVID-19. Jama. 2020.
•     Kimball A HK, Arons M, et al. Asymptomatic and Presymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 Infections in Residents of a Long-Term Care Skilled Nursing Facility — King County, Washington, March 2020. MMWR Morbidity and mortality weekly report. 2020; ePub: 27 March 2020.
•     Wei WE LZ, Chiew CJ, Yong SE, Toh MP, Lee VJ. Presymptomatic Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 — Singapore, January 23–March 16, 2020. MMWR Morbidity and mortality weekly report. 2020;ePub: 1 April 2020.
•     Li R, Pei S, Chen B, et al. Substantial undocumented infection facilitates the rapid dissemination of novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV2). Science (New York, NY). 2020.

(They do not, however, cite anything showing that fabric face masks substantially prevent transmission.)

In addition to the papers mentioned above, there's the sad example of the choir practice in Washington State, wherein many members of the choir became ill following an in-person rehearsal on March 10..  Yes, it's circumstantial -- it's possible that 3/4 of the choir members were all coincidentally exposed elsewhere around the same time -- but...very likely the virus was transmitted during the rehearsal.

[downer]

What you mean 'we,' kemosabe?

[Stockmann]

"But Dr. Jim Jones, professor of pharmacy at Stanford, shows that the coronavirus isn't that dangerous, or is not as deadly as the flu, or certainly doesn't warrant the huge economic damage that stay-home orders are causing."

If someone posted that on my social media I'd reply with links to the news that in Guayaquil, Ecuador there are corpses of Covid-19 victims rotting on the streets, and the government is distributing cardboard coffins because they've run out of wooden ones.
A lot of academics are idiots outside their field. I'm not sure what can be done about that, beyond stressing to out students the importance of evidence and arguments instead of appeals to (real or apparent) authority/social capital (of which academic credentials are a form). I tell anyone when relevant that the PhD is solely a unviersity certifying that someone has made an original contribution to a field and jumped through various hoops, that it isn't a certificate of wisdom, foresight, general knowledge or even common sense. What else can we do? Perhaps remind students that Einstein and Pauling ultimately turned away from the scientific method itself (Einstein with his refusal to accept quantum theory and "hidden variables" mumbo jumbo and Pauling with vitamin C as a miracle cure quackery), Cantor became insane, etc, to counter the cult of the genius?

[nonntt]

Exhibit 1, from March 17: "A fiasco in the making? As the coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data"

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/17/a-fiasco-in-the-making-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic-takes-hold-we-are-making-decisions-without-reliable-data/

John P.A. Ioannidis is professor of medicine and professor of epidemiology and population health, as well as professor by courtesy of biomedical data science at Stanford University School of Medicine, professor by courtesy of statistics at Stanford University School of Humanities and Sciences, and co-director of the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford (METRICS) at Stanford University.

[nonntt]

To understand the impact of Ioannidis's contribution, you need to understand two things. First, it appeared just days after governors started closing schools nationwide and other stay-home measures started taking effect. We're now starting to see those measures slow the rate of infection, but the effect of Ioannidis's piece, written by an eminent authority in the field, was to cast doubt on their wisdom. The second thing you need to understand is how his piece was and is still being used in right-wing and denialist media as proof that the public health measures we're now taking aren't worth the cost.

[nonntt]

Exhibit 2: "Coronavirus Perspective" by Richard A. Epstein, published 16 March 2020
https://www.hoover.org/research/coronavirus-pandemic

Richard A. Epstein, the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, New York University Law School, and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago.

As documented in the New Yorker, Epstein's theory influenced the Trump administration's response to the pandemic.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-contrarian-coronavirus-theory-that-informed-the-trump-administration

[nonntt]

Exhibit 3: "Is Our Fight Against Coronavirus Worse Than the Disease?" by David L. Katz, published in the New York Times on 20 March 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/opinion/coronavirus-pandemic-social-distancing.html

David L. Katz is a specialist in preventive medicine and public health, president of True Health Initiative and the founding director of Yale University's Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center.