It sounds like you took offense to my comment which wasn't my intent. I was just making a lighthearted stats critique of someone complaining about statisticians.
That said, I think statistics is like most other skills in that you get better at it the more you do it. All things being equal, I would trust the person who has spent more time thinking about a subject.
You don't need a PhD to gain enough knowledge of covid from literature to speculate meaningfully on an internet forum, especially if you already have a graduate degree and practice research, as many people undoubtedly on HN do.