Neil Ferguson and Ian Lipkin, heads of their respective prominent epidemiological institutes, have caught or are suspected of having caught COVID-19. Being a top epidemiologist seems to be a strong risk factor for being infected, given that fewer than 1% of the English speaking world has probably been infected so far and there are not that many epidemiologists who are as prominent as these two. (This seems worth noting here as a surprising/interesting fact to update on. I’m not suggesting we should draw strong conclusions from this.)
ETA: See also my previous comment about a couple of authorities on economics.
The story about Neil Ferguson suggests he got it while being in the press annoucement. It might very well be that the risk of getting infected was worth the PR of making that press annoucement as best as it could be.
Right, I have some uncertainty that there’s a reasonable explanation along those lines, which is (in part) why I said “I’m not suggesting we should draw strong conclusions from this.” But I cringe at public officials, including public health officials doing press conferences while not observing social distancing guidelines that they themselves are promoting. Wouldn’t it actually be more effective PR to show people what to do and signal that it’s something they themselves are taking seriously? On a positive note on this front, I noticed that yesterday Trump and other top officials did a Fox interview / virtual townhall outdoors while being appropriately spaced out. I can’t see how it would have been worse PR if all the officials had done that to begin with.
I don’t think this decision is up to the public health officials. Indeed, you can read an interview with Fauci where he is making this exact point and saying that he has asked, and asked, and asked, for social distancing to be observed at press conferences.
Neil Ferguson and Ian Lipkin, heads of their respective prominent epidemiological institutes, have caught or are suspected of having caught COVID-19. Being a top epidemiologist seems to be a strong risk factor for being infected, given that fewer than 1% of the English speaking world has probably been infected so far and there are not that many epidemiologists who are as prominent as these two. (This seems worth noting here as a surprising/interesting fact to update on. I’m not suggesting we should draw strong conclusions from this.)
ETA: See also my previous comment about a couple of authorities on economics.
The story about Neil Ferguson suggests he got it while being in the press annoucement. It might very well be that the risk of getting infected was worth the PR of making that press annoucement as best as it could be.
Right, I have some uncertainty that there’s a reasonable explanation along those lines, which is (in part) why I said “I’m not suggesting we should draw strong conclusions from this.” But I cringe at public officials, including public health officials doing press conferences while not observing social distancing guidelines that they themselves are promoting. Wouldn’t it actually be more effective PR to show people what to do and signal that it’s something they themselves are taking seriously? On a positive note on this front, I noticed that yesterday Trump and other top officials did a Fox interview / virtual townhall outdoors while being appropriately spaced out. I can’t see how it would have been worse PR if all the officials had done that to begin with.
I don’t think this decision is up to the public health officials. Indeed, you can read an interview with Fauci where he is making this exact point and saying that he has asked, and asked, and asked, for social distancing to be observed at press conferences.