On the grapevine
Too much Covid, too much criticism
A researcher loses her motivation because of all the Covid-19 research, while another is worried about public criticism of anti-Covid measures. We look at what researchers are saying out in the world of science.
The epidemiologist Steven Goodman is a researcher at Stanford University. | Photo: zVg
Steven Goodman is an epidemiologist at Stanford University. In an article for the Washington Post, he criticised the behaviour of his famous colleague John Ioannidis, who has publicly spoken of ‘sensationalism’ and ‘panic’ with regard to the lockdown. According to Goodman, such debates “can confuse people and undermine the consistent messaging needed for public health”.
Lis Evered is a neuroscientist at Cornell University in New York. | Photo: zVg
Lis Evered researches into operative cognitive disorders. She has written in Nature magazine of how she almost lost her sense of motivation when it seemed that combatting Covid-19 was the only thing that mattered any more in the world of science. Then she came across the word ‘covidisation’ that designates this excessive focus on the virus. It helped her change her perspective. “I felt a weight lifted off me,” she says.
