Don't patronise now me about the way science works for goodness sake.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
YOU may be clear about how science works, but I'm not. And one of the most challenging intellectual things about making sense of the epidemic is to judge the quality of the ideas that are foisted on you.
Look, 18 months ago, I'd have said, without ever having thought about it, that the BMJ was an impeccable scientific journal. But when you read what they say it becomes clear that some of their editorial and commentary is politically engaged, and IMO occasionally contains ideas which appear to be supported by the footnotes, but if you bother to dig down are only disputably so. So much for the context of the BMJ.
And The Lancet -- again I'd have said that it's an impeccable scientific journal. And then along comes that letter with 200 signatories asking for July 9 to be delayed. They're entitled to their opinion, but opinion is what it was, and in
my opinion half baked. The Lancet sounds like a journal which only publishes well thought through ideas -- but in reality it's not so simple.
And of course we had SAGE and a SAGE subgroup -- someone who would plausibly have privileged access to Government aims and intentions and strategies if they were part of SAGE, would less plausibly have access if they were part of a SAGE advisory subgroup. The distinction matters.
I don't know how seriously to take eclincalmedine. But I do know this: context matters, and I'm grateful to the people who have