If you approach an international health crisis with a “public health vs. real science” framing, you are simply not doing it right. All you’re demonstrating is that you don’t have a good enough grasp of either “public health” or “science” for people to trust your opinions.

And although Nate Silver might be a “good reader,” it bears mentioning that it takes a particular kind of arrogance to believe you can absolutely, within just a few months, just by putting some time in, become an expert on pretty much any topic in the world, just like that.

Let’s call it the Malcolm Gladwell syndrome - and I’d strongly recommend against taking people (men, it’s almost always men...) who suffer from it all that seriously.