One positive thing about the COVID-19 crisis. Science is being taken seriously in a concrete way. For example, this article on the front page of the Telegraph, comparing actual mortality risks: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/13/analysis-danger-coronavirus-compares-risks-everyday-life/

Reminds me of Richard Peto's talk on the causes of premature deaths. It is a matter of basic quantitative literacy about what actually kills most people.

On a more intellectual level, a highlight is @mlipsitch 's article on different traditions of scientific thought and how this has led to different responses to the crisis http://bostonreview.net/science-nature/marc-lipsitch-good-science-good-science#.XrrGUCxIJYc.twitter

And of course, many of my colleagues now reach 10s or 100s of thousands of followers, who now receive regular tweets on viral phylogenomics, such as this thread, retweeted 3700 times so far: https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1260281079732166656

In Shanghai, pub quiz become a very popular entertainment in the quieter days and remains extremely popular, in the face of increased competition from bars and nightclubs.

But "my who am I?" suggestion of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann was judged too obscure despite the possibility of clues such as: "Despite being a notoriously bad driver, he nonetheless enjoyed driving—frequently while reading a book—occasioning numerous arrests as well as accidents"

or: "When he was six years old, he could divide two eight-digit numbers in his head and could converse in Ancient Greek. " etc etc.

How much will people's attitude to science and indeed to the importance of facts be changed in the long run by this. Any opinions?