It's Their Own Damn Fault
It’s their own damn fault!
Some people claim that there's a woman to blame /
But I know it's nobody's fault /
Some people claim that there's a woman to blame /
Now I think, hell, it could be my fault /
Some people claim that there’s a woman to blame /
But I know it’s my own damn fault
Those are some of the words in the 1977 hit Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffet that was so popular it produced fans that named themselves “Parrotheads,” after the laid-back, drinking lifestyle portrayed in Margaritaville and other Buffet songs. There are two things we can take away from them. First, there’s the false confidence– he initially “knows” whose fault it is (that he’s drinking that frozen concoction that helps him hang on). During our latest pandemic, there has been way too much “certainty” in some of the scientist’s pronouncements and way too much from the political decision makers.
In the second verse, he admits to uncertainty. This is what we need a lot more of. In the field of risk analysis, uncertainty is one of the most important factors. It recognizes that all science, by its nature, is uncertain. However, uncertainty is considered a property of the analyst. That is, just because Buffet is uncertain as to whose fault it is, there may be a close friend who watches his meltdown and knows exactly whose fault it is. There were far too few people, scientists and politicians who admitted to being uncertain.
Where did the virus come from? Most people should have been uncertain and the only people that knew were, apparently, a small group of people in China (and perhaps a few here who were funding the research). Did masks work? Again, there wasn’t a lot of data and at least one key person initially said they didn’t. That he knew better but felt it was right from the public health perspective (to ensure that doctors and nurses had access to them) was a mistake because it eventually caused a lot of distrust.
In fact, science evolved in this case, as it always does, and the policy should also evolve right behind it. Note that policy makers also must take into account more than the target risk, they also have to look at the consequences of different policies. There was considerable uncertainty about the unintended consequences of lockdowns.
Risk assessors try to quantify uncertainty. For example, suppose a decision maker has to decide whether or not to ban a chemical that might cause cancer. The number of lives saved are uncertain based on the number of people exposed and how potent the chemical is. If 100 million people are exposed, banning may save between 0 and 100 depending on the potency. Higher potency means that more people are likely to get cancer if exposed to a certain amount of the chemical. Most risk interventions, like those we did for COVID were extremely uncertain as to how much they would reduce risks, but this was not communicated to the public.
Generally, people don’t like hearing about uncertainty, particularly when decisions will be made that affect their lives, in some cases, severely. But had we heard more about the uncertainty, about masks, lockdowns, vaccines, treatments, and COVIDs origins, I believe we would have had a lot more trust in governments. It might also have stopped some of the ridiculous word wars blaming people for putting out false information or worse, causing deaths. Admitting uncertainty would have allowed the processes of science, risk analysis, unintended consequences, and policy to proceed while maintaining trust.
Instead, trust in public health authorities declined.
In the end, Buffet gets it through liquified self-reflection. Maybe that’s what some of those who “knew” everything needed. In fact, what they might figure out is that the enormous loss of trust in public health authorities is “their own damn fault.”