How COVID showed that science doesn’t have all the answers

Since this Pandemic began we saw numerous studies saying one thing and then a few days or weeks later those studies were either updated with new data or proven wrong. If there is one thing this Pandemic has taught us, is that science has the cure but not today.

We have witnessed health experts sit on TV tell us why it’s not a good idea to wear masks; No, that is not a typo. It actually happened and the thing is, we as humans tend to forget.

“There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit. In fact, there’s some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly,” Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO health emergencies program, said at a media briefing in Geneva, Switzerland on March 30, 2020.

Look at us today, we cannot imagine ourselves to be outdoors without wearing a facemask. We would either be fined (Depending on where the person lives) or we would be called out by the “good Samaritan”.

In the past, we were told that masks were ineffective but now we are told they are effective even if the person does not have COVID or is not treating COVID positive people.

This is not the only time health experts have contradicted themselves and or other experts as numerous studies conducted by scholars and professors of various institutes suggested very high positivity rates during the first wave in South Asia, especially the countries with larger populations.

They were proven wrong as the positivity ratio for such countries was nowhere near the predicted levels.

Instead, Europe and the US ended up with the most cases and later on experts on TV said they really cannot predict outcomes like these and such studies were then never given the same level of importance.

Various reasons then were brought up to explain why countries like India cannot get a high number of COVID positive patients and the experts said it was because of “their strong immune system” enhanced by the tough living conditions.

Those studies sparked major fear and panic which led governments to hasty decisions like enforcing largescale lockdowns and micromanaging the Pandemic, only to make it worse.

Governor Andrew Cuomo who famously led the fight against the Pandemic micromanaged and made a huge mistake during the period where a lot of panic had spread, he sent COVID positive patients to nursing homes for the better of everyone only to cause more deaths and spread the virus to places it did not exist.

Andrew Cuomo is now infamous for making those decisions and he would be wondering if things had turned out different had he not listened and had acted differently.

Some breakthrough studies by scientists in finding the cure discovered Hydroxychloroquine to be effective against the virus but those studies were later disowned and the use of Hydroxy was deemed dangerous after adverse reactions were reported.

Remdesevir arrived after Hydroxy’s temporary abandonment, the cure we were waiting for which could subdue the effects of COVID, but not long after its use did we discover that its use is dangerous as well and should not be taken as an over-the-counter medicine but should only be tried on patients showing severe symptoms up until the clinical trials are successfully conducted.

Today, as masks are mandatory, we are now seeing various studies suggesting that wearing masks in outdoor gatherings really would be useless as the rate of catching COVID outdoors is “supposedly” extremely low. But when we revert back to no masks would we get newer studies telling us the opposite?

Well… As they say that each failure brings you a step closer to success but what this Pandemic has taught us is that we have got better healthcare facilities as time progressed but we still don’t have answers to “the Plague” and are facing one ourselves only with advanced facilities provided by Science for which we should be grateful.