The thing is, you shouldn’t speak to a broad array of specialties regarding COVID patients. Most COVID admissions will only see 4-5 types of doctors during their stay. Usually an ER doc, a hospitalist, a pulmonary/critical care doc, an infectious disease specialist and maybe a nephrologist or cardiologist depending on complications. It honestly doesn’t matter what your local dermatologist, allergist, podiatrist, dentist or chiropractor thinks they know about Covid. That’s one of the most frustrating things that I have seen through this is these types of guys vocalizing random narratives that have not a clue. Just because they have an MD or DO behind their name or call themselves a “doctor” doesn’t mean that their opinion is as valuable as mine in this circumstance. Just like I would not volunteer my opinion in their area of expertise. Confirmation bias exists and people seek out opinions to align with their belief.
You are correct, but I when I said "a broad range", I didn't say that they had all of the specialties that you named. I meant in relevance to the topic, which as I stated, was the "pandemic", not Covid patients, (
so it was NOT a lot of unqualified doctors yammering on things outside of their specialties as you'd assumed). That is exactly the type of flaw/weakness/concern that I frequently point out, so I certainly hope that I wouldn't fall into the same trap. They were giving general opinions on the
approach to managing the pandemic etc., and as such it was interesting to hear their opinions.
It's clear that most were likely mild contrarians, and there's no doubt that there may have been somewhat of an agenda, (
hopefully, just to get some alternate opinions out that the public normally wouldn't get to hear given the way things are being suppressed and censored during this pandemic). When I'm collecting data, I'll wade in and get data from
all available perspectives, and then I'll sort through it and discard the rubbish and trash. I trust that I know how to "eat the meat, and spit out the fat", while avoiding throwing out the baby with the bath water too. The LAST thing I do is blindly seek out one-sided information to set my self up for a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. I actually do exactly the opposite, ensuring that I've gotten information from as many reasonable perspectives as possible.
Lastly, you are correct. Confirmation bias is indeed rife. In science, in Covid, and in many other things, but it DEFINITELY works in
BOTH directions. That's exactly what I'm protesting. One-sided, biased propaganda. I assure you that I don't approach things that way, and there's practically no chance I'd fall into that trap.