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The First Rigorous Study of SARS-CoV2 Transmissibility
Why October 29th 2020 will be an important day for epidemiology
As those who occasionally read my musings here on Medium will know, I deplore the lack of scientific rigor associated with most so-called “scientific” studies and reports regarding SARS-CoV2, aka “the killer coronavirus.” As the Stanford University Medical Center pointed out in its analysis of 29 papers on covid-19 earlier in 2020, covid-19 is far too important a topic for the usual sloppy research comprising poorly designed experiments and misleading statistical analysis.
For those who haven’t been paying attention to primary research over the last 15 years, there’s a crisis in science. Both Nature and Science, the leading non-specialist journals, have noted that at least half of all scientific papers aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. A great many more fail to be reproduced on the rare occasions anyone tries to do so. In other words, much “science” is little more than career-propping fluff designed to garner the minimum necessary number of citations as the academic in question reaches desperately for tenure or attempts to justify her/his comfortably remunerated position.
Nowhere has junk science been more in evidence than with SARS-CoV2. While ignorant journalists eager for sensational headlines can’t judge and don’t even care…