Over the past months, logical fallacies and cognitive biases have relentlessly distracted from critical appraisal and transparent communication of the scientific evidence related to COVID-19.
As a result, finding trustworthy sources of information and guidance on COVID-19 has been difficult for the public. The pandemic has brought a paper tsunami with widespread misinterpretation of both peer-reviewed research and preprints, press releases without scrutinizable data, sensationalized media reporting, and endless conspiracy theories. Misinformation and disinformation Footnote 2 come in endless guises and spread via different mechanisms, including campaigns of persistent inaccurate beliefs and falsehoods, deceptive messages, and engagement echo chambers Footnote 3. Naturally, intolerance of uncertainty has driven some people to fill this void with deceptive narratives. The global community is not used to seeing rapidly emerging science and changing policy, and has therefore been desperate for immediate, unambiguous answers. Scientists across disciplines, policymakers, and journalists continue to operate on “Pandemic Standard Time”-struggling to meaningfully advance science, policy, and communication in real time with rapidly emerging data, while countering the unprecedented “infodemic” Footnote 1, polarization, and politicization in pandemic response plans. COVID-19 has stretched healthcare system capacity, negatively impacted mental health, exacerbated socioeconomic disparities, and devastated economies. With over 180 million confirmed infection cases and over 3.9 million related deaths as of early July 2021, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) continues to spread globally. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has posed unparalleled challenges to society and upended life in a myriad of devastating ways. There is a need for meaningful public health communication and science-informed policies that recognize shades of gray, uncertainties, local context, and social determinants of health. We urge a nuanced understanding of the science and caution against black-or-white messaging, all-or-nothing guidance, and one-size-fits-all approaches. However, they are hardly binary, simple, or uniform, and therefore should not be framed as polar extremes.
These key issues of science and public health policy have been presented as false dichotomies during the pandemic. We also address the challenges in understanding the broad clinical presentation of COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 transmission, and SARS-CoV-2 reinfection. We discuss the importance of multidisciplinary integration (health, social, and physical sciences), multilayered approaches to reducing risk (“Emmentaler cheese model”), harm reduction, smart masking, relaxation of interventions, and context-sensitive policymaking for COVID-19 response plans. no masking, and 6) SARS-CoV-2 reinfection vs. aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2, 5) Masks for all vs.
asymptomatic severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, 4) Droplet vs. economy and livelihoods, 2) Indefinite lockdown vs. The topics of this review are: 1) Health and lives vs. In this comprehensive narrative review, we deconstruct six common COVID-19 false dichotomies, address the evidence on these topics, identify insights relevant to effective pandemic responses, and highlight knowledge gaps and uncertainties. Several false dichotomies have been used to polarize debates while oversimplifying complex issues. Scientists across disciplines, policymakers, and journalists have voiced frustration at the unprecedented polarization and misinformation around coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
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