Across social media, Silicon Valley data wonks, as well as people with Ph.D.s in fields tangentially related to epidemiology, are analyzing public datasets, posting graphs, and making sweeping predictions about the pandemic. Some, like Ginn, draw conclusions that contradict accepted public health advice. Other casual assessments of the numbers are being used to make uselessly terrifying cases for containing the virus’s spread. Wherever you look, people have become suspiciously comfortable with concepts like R0 and CFRs, which they use to argue in favor of or against widespread social distancing. At least one epidemiologist has called the phenomenon a crisis in its own right—an “epidemic of armchair epidemiology.” Read more…