I've been thinking a lot about erring…erring on the side of too much caution versus erring on the side of not enough. All of us — and that includes you and even me — are probably doing a certain amount of both at the moment. What's happening in this country now is so unprecedented and odd that it's impossible to not sometimes err one way if not both.
So many of the questions we have now, starting with "Exactly how bad is COVID-19?" are most properly answered by "We don't know yet" and I wish more people would admit that rather than to pass guesses off as valid information. Even educated guesses by people who have long been educated in this kind of thing are still only educated guesses.
Watching the news, you've probably seen Dr. Anthony Fauci talking about the coronavirus and being very cautious about what he says and refusing to speculate on important matters. Dr. Fauci is the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. You should not be surer of what you're saying about the medical end of this than he is. You should be wary of anyone who is, especially if they drive trucks, fix computers, do cartoon voices, write comic books or deliver for Grubhub.
Their profession doesn't mean they're wrong. Their lack of expertise doesn't even mean they're wrong. We all know how often even broken clocks can be right. I think we just need to differentiate between informed opinions and wild guesses. I know people who confuse the two, especially after they make a wild guess that just happens to turn out right. I don't know how dangerous the coronavirus is but I know it's too dangerous to be guided by wild guesses…even the wild guesses of someone whose wild guesses are right once in a while.