Social media is filled with all sorts of posts alleging this and that about the Coronavirus.
- Anti-malaria drugs impede Covid-19…oh, no, they don’t.
- One study shows people with Type A blood are more prone to serious results from the virus, one shows people with Type O are more protected. Will other studies come out refuting the findings, contradicting them?
- We were told to make sure to wipe down all we got from grocery stores and then told there was a really minimal danger of being infected that way.
- We spent weeks going into the middle of the street to walk if someone was coming at us from the other direction on the sidewalk only to then be told that the odds of being infected by merely passing one another (unless the other person coughed, sneezed, spit, yelled at you) were minimal.
All you have to do is the look at the history of “ground-breaking” studies about, for example, chocolate, wine, coffee, PSA tests, healthy diets, etc. to see that all these seem to be tentative and subject to discussion, review, replication, refutation. In this era of studies, think of the ones that the prestigious medical journals have withdrawn when the conclusions, assumptions, data was challenged.
For most of the things posted and posited, I am wary that the database might be faulty or incomplete, the assumptions are suspect, etc. Recently a beautician at a hair salon was shown to be positive for the virus, had treated over 100 customers…and none have gotten sick. We are told they were wearing masks as was the operator. What does that do for one’s perception of the risk of getting your hair done? If risk factors are to be quantified, what percentage of grocery store patrons where you shop have to be wearing a mask?
My point: we don’t know much and should be cautious and wary about things that are posted about studies, opinions of experts, etc. The dust won’t settle on all this for years, I suspect. For now, I am reading all that I see posted with, as they say, a grain of salt (which is either good for me or raising my blood pressure).
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