Some of you may have noticed the inconsistency of advice coming from official agencies regarding the coronavirus. (We don’t need to mask, we do need to mask. There aren’t many asymptomatic transmissions, there are lots of asymptomatic transmissions. The death rate is 5%, now 1%, finally 0.5%.)
This might make us think that these organizations are incompetent. Some would even say dishonest. Perhaps they are reporting inaccurate information to gain advantage for themselves or other people they are beholden to. This is how conspiracy theories start. As soon as we lose trust in information sources, we want to know why, and generally we find an explanation however unlikely.
I’d like to offer another explanation for changing advice and statistics about the virus. It’s in the nature of science that findings change. There are more mask studies, and so we discover the usefulness of masks in tamping down the epidemic. We discover lots of asymptomatic infections, and this drives down the overall death rate. This is normal science. Yet this cycle of change can feel deeply unsatisfying. Can’t we just have some reliable information on how to keep safe from this deadly virus?
We all want absolutes, especially in matters of health. If a recommended treatment for our illness changes, we can feel that we’ve wasted time, energy and money on something worthless. This feeling is understandable. But science doesn’t offer us absolute truths, only provisional ones. And for those truths to be of any use, they have to be applied promptly. With heart attacks or pandemics, doctors and policy makers don’t have the luxury of waiting for perfect knowledge. They have to act with the information at hand.
In the war against Covid-19, provisional truth is the only intelligence we have. The sooner we accept this the less upset we will be with new policies, changing treatments, and updated statistics. Better knowledge leads to better interventions. The virus is suppressed. Fewer people die. And society is enabled to safely reopen — an outcome we all want.
Know and remember this: Science is provisional. If we want absolutes we should turn to our faith traditions which provide revealed rather than experimental truth. Religion — or faith, spirituality, use the word that works for you — gives us the unchanging security we long for. It doesn’t hurt to pray for a miraculous end to the COVID-19 pandemic. God knows, we need one. And if we are people of faith let’s believe in a good and hopeful future. But let’s not expect of public health agencies what they can’t give. Their information and advice will always be changing. For the unchanging turn toward the Sacred and Divine. We’ll all be a lot less disappointed.