The reason I rely on experts in their respective fields, and collaborations between those experts, is because of the the inability of the (general) population to:
- read, understand and integrate large amounts of information across multiple disciplines
- understand statistics, and the difference between an outlier and a trend, and how modelling works.
- make inferences based on the information and data
I don’t rely on the opinion of:
- people who didn’t catch covid-19 from talking to their neighbour one time, therefore it is propaganda
- radio personalities, whose opinions wax and wane from day to day. Yes, opinions.
- charlatans on Facebook promoting vitamins, magic radiation machines, diluted water, and the like.
- experts from unrelated fields, entrepreneurs, self-promoters, influencers.
- people who promote third-party anecdotes as the truth or the answer.
If we want our society to survive this we have to play the long game, the game where we play to stay in the game.
This is not a time to make up your own mind, and to act on that basis. Even the most avid and committed amateur cannot be across all the current research, and new research each week, let alone understand it.
Because of the long incubation period of this virus, there is a big gap between cause and effect. That’s why we’ve been told to wait at least 2 weeks to see the results of lockdown. Any other changes that are made will take 2-3 weeks to show up in the data.
That’s why you cannot trust your own instincts.
We are fortunate in New Zealand to have excellent leadership. Best to rely on them, I think, and on offical sources of information that are based on real science.
Richard Hulse 
I fear part of the post-Christendom era is the waning of veracity as a basic expectation. I can bring to mind (even in NZ) leading politicians and CEOs who have excused their deceptive practices on the grounds that ‘everyone does it’. Gone are the days when your word was your bond and breaching it had long-term consequences.
An inability to sort/process all the information yourself, combined with the knowledge that some or many of those you look to may be lying to you, creates fear and helplessness. On the other hand, people like Dr Fauci in the US are gaining a new popularity, because a) he knows what he’s talking about and b) people can trust him not to lie to them.
Refusing to bend or bypass the truth has been a hard row to hoe for many, but taking the long view, it’s worth it.
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