People are extrapolating data and making graphs left, right, and center about how this disease should or should not spread, how we are or are not testing enough, whether the country should be up & running in 6 months or 6 yrs. Most people have no idea what they’re talking about

Data science engineers, business graduates, tech startup founders, economists, physicists, astronomers, cardiologists, and even private health experts are NOT public health experts. There is a lot of context to how this virus works and spreads that non-experts are unaware of.

Data plots are almost ALL inaccurate and full of heavy assumptions that ignores real world transmission/surveillance scenarios. Modeling for disease requires wide subject matter knowledge on several things, not just how to do mathematics on numbers.

Here’s a rebuttal from an informed microbiologist to the popular thread by a management consultant which argues for what is essentially just preserving testing kits to get high accuracy and ignoring actual asymptomatic disease transmission or the reality of surveillance. https://twitter.com/bhalomanush/status/1250422480189050881

Get your information from people with real, hands-on experience & knowledge with actual contagious virus spread. Most crucially, experts understand the gaping voids in their knowledge & always convey info w caveats that take into consideration evolving information & gaps in data.

Even among actual experts, it’s already tricky and hard enough to figure out who understands this disease! Please, research who you choose to listen to and believe. https://twitter.com/mlipsitch/status/1250226804960432128

I’m not one to stress on qualifications normally but during times of a global pandemic which has killed >100,000 people, it is imperative to listen to & amplify only those who understand what they’re talking about and have subject matter knowledge in infectious diseases/viruses.

Some sources to ID by bio keywords: infectious disease modelers/researchers, infectious disease epidemiologists, public health experts, disease dynamicists/modelers, virologists, immunologists, micro/molecular biologists, disease ecologists, ER/EMTs/healthcare workers w. Covid19.

Even among those, if there's conflicting information, ensure your source is accurate: a virologist working on coronaviruses specifically would typically know better than one working on HIV.

If it's helpful, here's my own list of trusted sources: https://twitter.com/i/lists/1235479187814641664