He likened the pandemicвЂ™s outbreak of amateur epidemiologists to the way war makes every citizen into an amateur geographer and tactician: вЂњInstead of maps with colored pins, we have charts of exposure and death counts people on the street argue about infection fatality rates and herd immunity the way they might have debated wartime strategies and alliances in the past.вЂќДЄnd along with all the data and public discourse-Are masks still necessary? How long will vaccine protection last?-came the barrage of uncertainty. Giving up on certaintyД¬oauthor Andrew Gelman, a statistician and political scientist at Columbia University, set out вЂњthe bigger pictureвЂќ in the essayвЂ™s introduction. вЂњThere were a number of missed opportunities,вЂќ Zelner says-caused by missing links between the ideas and tools epidemiologists proposed and the world they were meant to help. вЂњBut our role has been more complex and more poorly defined than I had expected at the outset of the pandemic.вЂќ An infectious disease modeler and social epidemiologist at the University of Michigan, Zelner witnessed an вЂњinsane proliferationвЂќ of research papers, вЂњmany with very little thought about what any of it really meant in terms of having a positive impact.вЂќ вЂњI always imagined that in this kind of emergency, epidemiologists would be useful people,вЂќ Jon Zelner, a coauthor of the essay, says.

We have to make practical decisions, so how much does the uncertainty really matter? Seth Guikema But the right balance between pure research results and pragmatic solutions proved alarmingly elusive during the pandemic. The answer, they write, may lie in reimagining epidemiology with more of an engineering perspective and less of a вЂњpure scienceвЂќ perspective.Д®pidemiological research informs public health policy and its inherently applied mandate for prevention and protection. In a recent essay, вЂњ Accounting for uncertainty during a pandemic,вЂќ the researchers reflect on their roles during a public health emergency and on how they could be better prepared for the next crisis.

Meanwhile, a group of bona fide epidemiologists and statisticians came to believe that pandemic problems might be more effectively solved by adopting the mindset of an engineer: that is, focusing on pragmatic problem-solving with an iterative, adaptive strategy to make things work. The last 20 months turned every dog into an amateur epidemiologist and statistician.

Gears of war concept art