Kevin Roche has the perfect complement to John Tierney’s City Journal essay “The panic pandemic.” The Star Tribune has just published Kevin’s column “The vaccines work. Panic is a contagion we don’t need.” As usual, Kevin describes himself in the tag on his column as “a health care investor and consultant [who] writes the health care policy and research blog the Healthy Skeptic.”
Kevin wrote the column a week or two ago. This morning Kevin follows up on his column with the Healthy Skeptic post “An Updated Big Picture on the Epidemic.”
As in his Star Tribune tag, Kevin frequently undersells his expertise. In his post he comments that his “column should have been written by a physician and I don’t know why someone hasn’t stepped up to provide better education to the public and better expectations.” Uncharacteristically, Kevin adds:
[L]et me just say that my background includes 50 years of experience in health care, including working as a nurse’s aide and running multi-hundred million dollar businesses. I understand health care data and analytics. I have been reading health research for 40 years and writing a blog on health care research and policy for over ten years. So I know how to read and understand and critique data sets and research. With the help of Dave Dixon and others, we have been able to provide more insight into the course of the epidemic in Minnesota and nationally and give people easy to understand graphical representations of that course.
Among the areas I have become familiar with in the course of my career are epidemiology and immunology. So when the epidemic began and I saw the horrific public response, I felt well prepared to try to provide people with information that would help keep them balanced and rational. And yes, some of my commentary is biting, even harsh, but also I believe adds a little humor to a dark situation. Hopefully the blog has met that objective. And once again, let me express the deepest possible appreciation for readers, every one of you, including those who often disagree with me.
As always, highly recommended if it is understanding that you seek.
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