All over the world Covid-19 has created an epidemic of tribalism and virtue signalling, says Dr Vinay Prasad.
He wants to have a different kind of conversation about Covid-19, free of shame and blame and entrenched attitudes on all sides.
Dr Prasad is an associate professor in the epidemiology department at the University of California.
Vinay Prasad Photo: supplied
Medicine is rapidly becoming a tribal field in this pandemic, he says, because often people speak only about rights and wrongs when in fact there's a lot of uncertainty too.
"I'll give you one example... [in the United States] we have policies that routinely mask children aged two and up and those policies that are led by our American Academy of Paediatrics and our CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] are different than the WHO's policies, which are not to mask kids younger than six and to selectively mask under 12.
"If we're all perfectly honest, we have to admit we don't know for sure who is doing the right thing, we don't know for sure if there is a magic age above which it works and below which it doesn't.
"The best thing we can do as a scientific community is run some robust studies to answer that question. But we will exit this pandemic with zero robust studies on that question, we will not know anything more than when we entered it, and that to me speaks to tribalism.
"In the United States, that's an incredibly divisive issue, people feel strongly that it must help or people feel strongly that it is a bad thing to do, but nobody is really meeting in the middle and saying, there's some uncertainty here, let's acknowledge that."
There may be an argument that brushing uncertainty under the carpet is to create homogeneity of idea on the threats of the virus, but that can backfire and lead to loss of trust, he says.
"[Facebook] literally prevented you from discussing the possibility the virus was from a lab leak. I'm not an expert in this topic, I don't know exactly where the virus come from.
"But I think it's problematic if the software prohibits you from talking about it and then months later, now suddenly it's okay to talk about it, they've had to remove the ban."
It's inevitable that politics and science will intertwine, Dr Prasad says, but he worries we're confusing them for the same thing in this pandemic.
"To me, the worst possible outcome will be if we exit the pandemic with two sciences. If we exit with one set of science that says lockdowns work they save lives ... and the other set of science says they never work.
"The truth might be something in between, they work really well under certain sets of circumstances, with certain types of people in certain populations, and they might not have worked so well in other times and places.
"So I hope we have a science committed to finding the truth and not towards validating the preconceived notions of political parties."
We shouldn't demonise people for asking questions, whether it be about the vaccine or lockdowns, he says.
On the other hand, there's lots of data from people who have taken the vaccine globally, which shows any potential risk won't outweigh the benefits, he says.
"As you have years and years of follow-up on a product, you will learn more things on that side of the scale.
"Maybe we will learn some things we don't yet know, but in my mind if you actually sit down and you get the numbers on the risk of the virus, and the risk to yourself if you get the virus, and you look at your age ... I think what I see the scale tips in favour of vaccinations, even acknowledging potential unknown risks that we do not yet know."
Scientists need to have humility and acknowledge things we don't yet know, he says, but that doesn't mean we have to wait to make a decision either.
"As I pointed out with adult vaccinations, that scale tips so heavily in favour of vaccination, I don't even think it's mathematically possible that there are unknown harms that can tip that scale.
"That's I think a better way, and a more accurate way, of conveying why we feel so strongly rather than just trying to dismiss someone's concerns out of hand."
We also need to ask what are the root causes behind people spreading fabricated information or misinformation, he says.
"There are lots of social factors that I think have hurt some of these people over time such as income and wealth inequality, such as the feeling that your life is no longer yours to shape, including I think a feeling that the elites condescend to you, speak down to you, I think these are all real sentiments and in part driving some of this polarisation."
He says the platforms through which this information often spreads, like twitter and Facebook, will in the future be seen in the same light as tobacco companies.
"They are selling a knowingly addictive product, that product is addicting people based on the base human emotions of fear, rage, jealousy, hate and anger.
"So I think the way I would tackle these people who hold these views is not to fight fire with fire, but to continue to practice the best science we can, convey the uncertainty, but also to work to take away the power of these social media companies, to work on these roots causes of this distrust."
