People in my wider social environment, who are not scientists, start to ask me questions about the spreading of the Corona Virus – clearly I feel flattered, ‘cause, hey, I am a clever scientist and I know about exponentials and also about logistic curves. However, I stop after explaining these fundamental mathematical constructs and I am certainly not starting to judge or recommend actions (to be) taken by governments. I am not an expert on epidemics, I am not an expert on virology, I am not an expert on social behaviors – I just know exponentials.
Why making this obvious statement? Well, I see more and more articles and posts where different nations are compared, and simple data-analyses are performed – either by science journalists or by fellow scientists (and also physicists). Well, I guess people start to get bored. My problem is not that people do data-analysis and explain exponentials or logistic curves. This I find super important (and it is fun too). My problem is, that they draw conclusions and give recommendations or projections.
I think all these conclusions have all one thing in common: they are certainly too simplistic and most likely plain wrong (apart from the exponential functions which people fit – who would have thought). Nobody of these simple analyses considers obvious factors, e.g. the quality of the underlying data, the differences in the capabilities of the health- and testing-system, differences in the population and their behavior and many others. And all these things definitely matter, when you want to draw any conclusion which goes beyond “Oh look – it is exponential”. And since I am not an expert, I am surely missing hundreds of other factors which matter. Just because one action might or might not have helped in country A does not tell you how this is transferable to country B. The world is complex, if you haven’t noticed yet.
I am certainly convinced that it is important to get the right point in time for the right measure – it must be clear to everybody, that an action that is taken too late can be as harmful as an action that is taken too soon. So, who knows then the best way forward? Everybody agrees that one has to slow down the spread so that your health system doesn’t collapse. Everybody also agrees that simple hygienic measures have to be taken: keep a reasonable distance, wash your damn hands and for god sake cough correctly. But I am afraid there is no definite answer beyond that and we have to live with it.
It has to be trial and error and from an experimental perspective it might be even useful that different countries try different things – this is the only way how we will learn better in the future. I am just happy that I do not have to take now political decisions, because nobody knows what the optimal answer is – and surely no scientist, who just can fit an exponential and has no other expertise on this topic. However, I get more and more the feeling that far too many people believe they know exactly what should be done.
And since I am already on it: From time to time, I talk to journalists about my research and I really try to explain things in simple terms. Sometimes journalists even try to summarize some of my papers. In both cases, I am puzzled when I read the first draft of their article. Crucial information is taken out of context or just explained wrongly. Just some days ago, I read about my research that I “study axions, which are the lightest particles in the universe”. People who know my research, understand what’s wrong with this sentence and for all others: naah – I am not doing that. You might think that this is just the case for my research, and I am particularly bad at explaining.
It turns out that all of my colleagues from different fields of sciences have similar experiences. I am sure, the journalists try their best to cook things down so that non experts can easily understand them – however, this is really difficult, and I don’t blame them, that they fail. However, the conclusion for me is also clear: If I read an article from a journalist, even from a journalist with a scientific background, then I should not think that I really understood anything in detail of the underlying research and it certainly doesn’t qualify me to draw any significant conclusion. So, if you read about “a fact in an article” on the Coronavirus, I am almost certain that necessary context is missing for any non-trivial conclusions. So the takeaway message is once again: Ignore all recommendations from people, who have no relevant expertise - and physicists don’t have any of it. For myself: I better go back to work on stuff which I am expert on and extend my knowledge in reconstruction further: install powerlines and lay sewage pipes.
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