COVID
Delta is here and headlines are reporting the rise in new cases and hospitalizations, including some who have been fully vaccinated. What does this mean? Does the fact that some vaccinated people are getting sick mean the vaccines aren’t working? Some breakthrough infections are expected Thankfully, no. Even if
COVID
One of the reasons false information and pandemic rumors can be so confusing and exhausting is the high degree of self-contradiction. Granted, not everyone believes every rumor simultaneously, but overall self-contradiction is often a hallmark of inaccurate information, and exposure to many different self-contradicting narratives (often with lots of emotion
COVID
A friend of mine recently asked me how I respond to people who have opposing views about scientific issues like vaccines, and as evidence they cite people with credentials (i.e. PhDs, MDs) who agree with their position. This is a great question, and something I encounter all the time.
COVID
There is an article circulating entitled “How COVID-19 ‘Vaccines’ May Destroy the Lives of Millions” (on Mercola, it’s behind a subscription wall) that is arguing that the COVID vaccines are dangerous. I have seen this article reposted multiple times on his site, so I thought I’d go ahead
COVID
If there was one single scientific concept I could teach everyone in the country right now it would be this: what is an unfalsifiable hypothesis, and why do they confuse everyone. This concept alone explains a lot of the confusion and conspiracy theories around the COVID pandemic… why many still
COVID
Trying to decide if you’re going to take the COVID vaccine? Me too. And I decided the best way to make that decision was to look through the data. I figured there are a lot of people like me who want to understand the data for themselves. So if
COVID
How do we know that vaccines are safe? Has any action been taken from side effects reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)? Have vaccine recommendations ever changed in response to reports of adverse events to this system? To answer that question, I’m going to tell you
COVID
Since the beginning of the pandemic, there has been confusion over the numbers: are cases being undercounted or overcounted? Are deaths being correctly attributed to COVID, or is the COVID death count grossly overestimating the true death toll? People hear stories of men dying from heart attacks being listed as
COVID
Ooooooooook. Deep breaths. Let’s begin. I started this blog because I saw a lot of misinformation flying around, and well-meaning people are getting legitimately confused. And a lot of that misinformation is half truths or just quotes taken out of context (check out this post for examples of that)
COVID
I saw this post on the interwebs citing a bunch of studies, suggesting that masks are ineffective at preventing infection and/or are unsafe. (And also suggesting there is some sort of cover-up of this science). Since there is still controversy around mask-wearing (and the post gave me PubMed ID’
COVID
Medical research is a loooooooooong process. Like, really long. There are many different steps along the way, and from the outside it can be confusing why there was a study published years ago saying Drug X works for Disease Y, but a decade later we still don’t have a
COVID
Note: This article was written in early 2020 and since then new data has become available on several of the topics discussed. There have been a lot of “there is no evidence” statements flying around of late… There is no evidence coronavirus survivors can’t be reinfected. There is no