With the arrival of the Coronavirus to our borders, many people are doing more research on pandemics than they ever have before.  With this newly found expertise, they have found themselves full of new knowledge – knowledge once only reserved for well-trained public health experts.

So, you’re ready to be a public health expert?   It’s easier than you think!  Just ask yourself a few questions:

• Have you seen any movie that features dystopian societies? (Caveat: This only counts if the society is dystopian because of disease.  Those that are dystopian because of a financial system that squanders resources for only the rich is just fantasy talk.)
• Do you have a degree or training in anything except public health?
• Do you have an uncle that once told you that this one thing wasn’t real and actually is just a product of a secret government biological weapon run amok?
• Have you ever yelled “Fake news!”?
• Do you have a Facebook or Twitter page?

Then, boy do I have good news for you.  If you answered yes to even one of these, you are ready for your career as a social media public health expert.  Be satisfied knowing you’re way ahead of any of those MD/PhD “experts” that are showing up on the Fake News.  Feel the thrill as your expert opinion is shared/retweeted among other like-minded experts.  Know that your Nobel Prize in science would be coming your way if it wasn’t for the snowflakes that govern such things.

Finally, know that you were able to have this expertise without having to go through all the work of Dr. Anthony Fauci, MD, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984.  This guy decided to get so much unneeded experience that I chose to link his bio to his name rather than list all of his credentials.

Bottom line, don’t let your lack of education and experience define your level of expertise.

Next week, we will discuss climatology and how you can be an expert on climate change.