This HND piece journeys away from the technical and political aspects of COVID-19, and offers some practical suggestions on how to achieve some peace of mind in the midst of the crisis. We draw on several sources, and even reference a great line from a 1979 Disney movie.
I hope you find something you can use.
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This HND piece examines a few more failures of the public health "experts," who are guiding us (and not very well) through the novel coronavirus pandemic. We first discuss the scandal involving the hypersensitivity of the most-used screening test. Because of an over-cranking of the number of PCR cycles, false positives are being created at an alarming rate.
Then, we offer you the true story of how New York state caused the deaths of 11,000 people in their nursing home travesty. Finally, we segue into the small matter of how "flattening the curve" for a couple of weeks morphed into permanent lockdowns for much of the country--along with reflections on why we tolerate feckless experts.
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This HND piece examines the emerging field of mixed methods research, which strives to combine the best of quantitative and qualitative research approaches. Beginning in the social sciences, over the past few years, it has also moved into the health sciences.
Many researchers in the healthcare field have long appreciated that the highly touted randomized double-blind clinical trial, called a "gold standard" by some, has severe limitations. Indeed, we quote former CDC director Tom Frieden himself on that matter. The piece quotes experts and innovators in this exciting new methodology.
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