The person who told your brother this is either a non-expert, or some expert who for some reason is giving medical advice which is incompatible with the scientific consensus (this would really boggle my mind).

PS.: my 99.99% refers to the state of human knowledge and is more about what experts in the field know than what the general public knows.

> some expert who for some reason is giving medical advice which is incompatible with the scientific consensus

Does that really boggle your mind? We're all human. I don't think there's a relationship between being an expert and being honest.

I know there's always going to be PhDs who believe the earth is flat, because humans are like that... But it's just so hard to relate to super intelligent people believing crazy things. It really does boggle my mind!

You understand that people may not always say the same thing they believe to be true, right? People lie.

Of course I realize this, but unless you're suggesting that most PhDs lie most of the time, I'm not sure how this is relevant.

Just a reminder that these are actually good heuristics to live by, in life in general:

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_the_assumptio...

> some expert who for some reason is giving medical advice which is incompatible with the scientific consensus (this would really boggle my mind)

Doesn't really seem that mind boggling to me. The clear public health impetus at this point is simply to get shots in as many arms as possible. We've already had Fauci openly admit that he gave guidance against masking and low-balled herd immunity threshold estimates because he presumed it would not lead to the behavior he desired from the public at the time. It's not hard to imagine that mentality has made its way into the rank-and-file somewhat.

I think what I was referring to, and the examples you're giving, are very different. The early advice against masks were the best advice public health could give, with the information that was available (even among experts) at the time. I would give the same advice as Fauci at the time. There are a bunch of factors to consider: behavioural (people having a false sense of security and taking greater exposure risks, or people not using masks properly and actually increasing their risk), medical (at the time, the benefits of non-N95 masks were not as clear as they are now) and system-level (supply chain issues were real, many countries had a really hard time getting procurement of basic PPE for hospitals... and you want to make sure you prioritize hospital workers over the general population)