Attributing my perspective to dishonesty seems, well, dishonest. The fact is that members of this forum are broadly more informed and versed in statistics when

Attributing my perspective to dishonesty seems, well, dishonest. The fact is that members of this forum are broadly more informed and versed in statistics when compared to the general public. The general population, through typical news sources (which are infamously bad at being accurate on scientific topics), was exposed to a cacophony of information of wildly varied quality. One small set of examples from what I consider to be reasonable sources (CDC, WHO, some papers, and two mainstream news publications): [1] The original official estimates for death rate were off by an order of magnitude or more. [2] Then the government said masks don't work. Then the government said masks do work. [3-5] Then the government said they "miscounted" several relevant stats (cases, deaths, etc) several times. Then the advice was booster shots, as it was being discussed that the vaccine wasn't effective enough. [6-7] And as all of this went on, the public was becoming aware of varying governing bodies from all around the world disagreeing about strategy/effectiveness. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7049028/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7049028/ - Therefore, the case fatality rate (CFR) has been increasing over time, resulting in a high overall estimate of 5.25% (95% CI: 4.98–5.51%). [2] https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_e58c20c6-8735-4022-a1f5-1580bc732c45 https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_e58c20c6-8... - While Fauci, along with several other US health leaders, initially advised people not to wear masks, Fauci later said that he was concerned that there wouldn’t be enough protective equipment for health care workers. [3] - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/24/cdc-coding-error-overcount-covid-deaths https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/24/cdc-coding-err... [4] - https://www.npr.org/2020/11/06/929078678/cdc-report-officials-knew-coronavirus-test-was-flawed-but-released-it-anyway https://www.npr.org/2020/11/06/929078678/cdc-report-official... [5] - "We documented 25 instances when the CDC reported statistical or numerical errors. Twenty (80%) of these instances exaggerated the severity of the COVID-19 situation, 3 (12%) instances simultaneously exaggerated and downplayed the severity of the situation, one error was neutral, and one error exaggerated COVID-19 vaccine risks. The CDC was notified about the errors in 16 (64%) instances, and later corrected the errors, at least partially, in 13 (52%) instances. " - https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4381627#maincontent https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4381627#... [6] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-11/repeat-booster-shots-risk-overloading-immune-system-ema-says#xj4y7vzkg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-11/repeat-bo... [7] - https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o108 https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o108