When it comes to COVID-19, which expert should you believe?
Epidemiologists, chief health officers and infectious disease specialists are asked daily for their opinion on lockdowns, vaccines, restrictions and outbreak predictions. While some struggle with their newfound fame, others take to it like a duck to water, amassing huge numbers of social media followers and using their very public platform to disagree with other academics.
Much like politics, there’s a factional divide between experts, some erring on the side of caution and others pushing for optimism and greater freedom. The result: healthy public debate has turned into something nastier, creating even more confusion on who to trust during a period of uncertainty.
Where are the fault lines?
Divides have emerged between OzSage, a group of doctors and academics lobbying the government for COVID action, and former deputy chief medical officer Dr Nick Coatsworth, who now works as an infectious disease physician for Canberra Health Services.
In the AFR today, Coatsworth is reported to have said he had previously warned colleagues that the OzSage group was living in an “alternative reality”.
Executives of the group include biosecurity expert and UNSW Professor Raina MacIntyre, Melbourne University’s school of population and global health head Nancy Baxter, and economist and Crikey contributor Richard Holden. Members include former independent MP and medical practitioner Kerryn Phelps, the Grattan Institute’s Stephen Duckett, the Australian Medical Association’s Nick Talley and microbiologist Brendan Crabb.
Phelps has been targeted on social media by Coatsworth. Responding to a video of her on Twitter raising concerns about unvaccinated kids going back to school during the outbreak, Coatsworth told his near 19,000 followers to “Ignore this woman”, later arguing remote learning should be “resisted by Australian parents”.
On New Year’s Day, he wrote a bold piece in The Sydney Morning Herald: “In 2022, the COVID-19 pandemic will end. The case for fear of COVID-19 is now restricted largely to the social media platform of Twitter.”
Three days later, Phelps responded in Guardian Australia: “The only example Australia is providing to the world now is a warning about what not to do with the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Public spats are nothing new. Premiers have gone head-to-head with the Morrison government, and former Queensland chief health officer Jeannette Young was both praised and criticised for her doomsday take on the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Who’s right and who’s wrong?
OzSage has taken a particularly cautious approach to the pandemic. Given how broad its panel of experts are, this makes sense. Disability advocates are concerned about the effect of outbreaks on the immunocompromised and those unvaccinated for medical reasons; disaster response experts are concerned about hospital surge capacity; offender health experts are concerned about prison outbreaks and human rights violations … the list goes on.
Predictions have often been wrong, downplaying or emphasising the dangers of the disease. Modelling and predictions are tough, given the virus is a moving beast and outcomes vary based on social restrictions, superspreader events and compliance to those rules. But mistakes have been made on all sides.
MacIntyre has drawn criticism for her predictions. In February 2020 she said 400,000 Australians could die from COVID — an estimation that would be true if COVID was 20 times more fatal than it is. In December 2020 she warned NSW cases could jump to 3000 in a fortnight after the Sydney northern beaches outbreak, instead of 220.
Coatsworth similarly said lockdowns could be avoided once 50% of the population had been fully vaccinated (even without Omicron, this was an optimistic prediction at odds with national cabinet modelling). He also said in this current outbreak that modelling showing NSW would have more than 25,000 cases a day was “not accurate”. (NSW this morning recorded 34,759 new cases.)
What effect is this having?
Amid long lockdowns and mental health concerns, Victoria and the federal government were slow to tell Australians what a pathway to freedom would look like. Even two years in, rules aren’t clear with the government flip-flopping on PCR versus rapid antigen tests, close contact definitions, and states reversing rules on restrictions, fuelling confusion and mistrust.
Experts are receiving a high amount of abuse. One October study found 20% of surveyed public scientists had received threats of physical or sexual violence.
Twitter wars might be good for an expert’s exposure, but social media attacks in a time of uncertainty are not something the public needs to see.
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I find it disappointing that any medical practitioner would take the same ‘less-than-cautious’ approach that Dr Coatsworth seems to be happy with in relation to dealing with this pandemic. If I detected that attitude in my GP then I would drop that GP in ‘the bat of an eye-lid’, as I would assume that his insouciance would not stop there.
I think that the OzSage doctors and academics have shown both excellent judgment and good sense throughout this pandemic. They have my respect and admiration. Sure, some of them have made wrong predictions on occasions. Even the experts are not right all the time, especially when dealing with a new and rapidly evolving situation such as we have seen with SARS-Cov-2. As I understand it, Dr Coatsworth has not only been critical of the OzSage experts, he has also apparently made some quite insulting and unprofessional remarks about some of those in the AMA.
It seems to me that if Dr Coatsworth had been in charge of managing the Covid crisis from the outset then the infection, hospitalization and death rates would be significantly higher than they now stand. Perhaps
Dr Coatsworth would have been more comfortable had he been employed by former United States President Donald Trump as a health adviser. Given Dr Coatsworth’s attitude, I suppose that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro would be delighted to offer him a position in his Health Department. I feel that if Dr Coatsworth were to take up such an overseas position then he would be doing both himself and Australia a big favor.
“Who’s right and who’s wrong?”, you may ask. Granted, it would be a lengthy piece of its own, but the number of times that Dr Coatsworth has been wrong over the last 18 months has been truly staggering. This piece is deficient without at least flagging Dr Nick’s all-time classic “COVID-19 is definitely not an airborne pathogen”, still published in its full glory on the Federal Health website: https://www.health.gov.au/news/deputy-chief-medical-officer-interview-on-sky-news-live-first-edition-on-6-may-2020
Perhaps the question is wrong, we don’t yet know who is right and wrong. But on settled issues, the formguide is very clear. So, let’s ask “Who’s more likely to be wrong?”. The answer to that is very clear, and I’ll put my faith in those who are arguing against any nonsense that Dr Nick is putting up.
I am still bemused that just the very simple metrics of having a lot of people ill at the same time – which is exactly what is playing out now – was simply not spoken about. It’s so simple. It’s so obvious. And yet people kept concentrating on how many people might die – either overstating or understating it, depending on their stance. The fact that this has become an indicator of your politics is very, very sad.
There is ample evidence from the US about what happens when covid runs riot in schools, and schools aren’t prepared. But it seems that a lot of those commenting in our major news outlets either don’t have a handle on that situation or are wilfully ignoring it. Maybe the whole lot of them should just stfu and read and research before dispensing their breathless wisdom to us. And by read and research I mean actually dig down into social media and read comments from ordinary people who are affected by this.
Coatsworth appears to be looking for a safe Liberal seat?
With his outlook he should not have too much trouble finding one.
I was bemused frequently by Coatsworth who often appeared to be talking nonsense. We made a lot of people very sick, especially in Victoria by failing to accept aerosol spread though the WHO was telling the world that it was the main pathway. Not that it matters, Scummo and Domicron Perrottet are not interested in anything except lying and giving people Covid. My GP was bemused yesterday. by the antics of NSW. I live in a rural town. RATs no hope, KN 95 masks nope, I have some coming, the last 10 could find online. I am vulnerable to this disease, though I have high hopes of VAx3 tomorrow which the doc says really does make a lot of difference (he’s got a lot of mates in the UK). I had hoped based on the mid December figures out here to go for brekky at our cafe, to visit a couple of places with my daughter who had to get tested and came late due to result delays, maybe even play a few tunes with my mates, but I am scared about buying groceries, we are getting more cases every two or three days than in the entire Delta outbreak. NO bastard is making any attempt to reduce the spread, rather with their RAT fail and the back to work with no test they are seeking to make it ten times worse.