I said a lot about MDs as not usually being a great source of information about the public health aspects of a pandemic in my last blog. Now I want to take up the remaining talking heads that you will see on TV.
Let’s start with politicians because they almost never have a clue. Why? Well, because they almost never have training in public health, they almost never are scientists. The Congressional Public Health Caucus has exactly one person with a master’s in public health (Rob Wittman (R-VA-1) who also has a Ph.D. in Public Health). No other members of Congress have an MPh as far as I can tell. There is one physicist Ph.D. and one applied math Ph.D. in the house, and as far as I can tell, there are no other scientists. There are lots of MDs of course, some of whom may or may not be, say, borderline acceptable (if not board certified) ophthalmologists, but otherwise, again as far as I can tell, they know nothing about public health issues, And alas because of this they can and do say things that go from being harmless but nutty all the way up to being downright dangerous – all the while thinking they know more then the pros. When a politician with an MD thinks they know it all, they are a public hazard, not a public good. More generally, my advice is: don’t pay attention to any politicians when they talk about the health aspects of the pandemic.
Epidemiologists are probably the best people to listen to about life in general during a pandemic. While an infectious disease doctor studies disease in individuals, the “trees”, epidemiologists study the “forest”: how diseases work in whole populations. Usually, the ones on TV are Ph.D. level research scientists who understand quite a lot of statistics. A common path to becoming an epidemiologist is to start with a masters of public health with a specialty in epidemiology and then either get a Ph.D. in epidemiology itself or a Ph.D. in something like public health e.g. environmental health or even biostatistics. They know a lot about the models for disease transmission, really understand herd immunity, and so on. Michael Osterholm is one of the best talking heads to listen to and has an MPh in epidemiology but his Ph.D. is in environmental health, for example.
Virologists are the people to listen to about viruses. They are your go-to people on vaccines, who think about and design drugs that may work on Covid-19, mutations in Covid-19, etc. They are either MDs who have chosen to do research in virology or Ph.D.s in a subject that gives them the tools to do virology. I’ve seen high powered virologists with degrees in biophysics, molecular biology, organic chemistry, and more (oh, as well as in Virology itself). In most cases (Fauci being an obvious exception), they know no more than laypeople do about the public health issues of a pandemic, such as when herd immunity might happen or actually conducting a vaccine trial.
Biostatisticians. I kind of love biostatisticians. They are the people who keep medicine and doctors honest. They design the trials, they tell you when you have a statistically significant result, etc. They tell you when a drug has failed to deliver in a trial, etc. They usually have a Ph.D. in statistics with lots of experience in the field that was gained by living through the messiness of actual clinical trials. Essentially, while any Ph.D. in mathematics can relatively easily learn the statistics behind clinical trials, what distinguishes a biostatistician from even a regular statistician (who does learn the math behind clinical trials as part of their training), is their real-life experience in the trenches. You rarely see biostatisticians on TV, and on the rare occasion when a biostatistician is on TV, they have no choice but to talk in generalities- the math they are using and the difficulties they have to deal with are hard to explain in a soundbite, alas.
Finally, Science Journalists. I do have a soft spot in my heart for science journalists. While some have professional training (all the way up to the Ph.D.), many do not – but it often doesn’t matter. The best of them have an uncanny ability to accurately translate what scientists are saying into descriptions that make sense to intelligent laypeople, and have this amazing ability to come up with analogies that really let laypeople understand what the scientists are doing.