It wasn't necessary, however it gave the authors the opportunity to test in just one line if the summary was true, and I guess it worked.
I also don't want politics injected into scientific topics, but the role of politicians is to rule for people's good, and talk with extreme caution and responsibility because of the trust people give them. When a high profile politician says "this is good", a lot of people will follow the advice blindly, so when a politician put people lives at risk by telling for example that Hydroxychloroquine works as a cure for the Coronavirus (to date at least one dead and one intoxicated after following that advice), it's politics actually harming lives with dangerous information, which makes everyone's duty to inject back common sense into the debate. If only because scientists don't have the same exposure, and it becomes so hard or even impossible for them to undo the damages done by clueless politicians who talk about things they don't know squat.
BTW. I would have the same exact opinion even in the case it was Obama or Clinton doing what Trump did.
In what way did it work?
> I also don't want politics injected into scientific topics, but the role of politicians is to rule for people's good, and talk with extreme caution and responsibility because of the trust people give them. When a high profile politician says "this is good", a lot of people will follow the advice blindly, so when a politician put people lives at risk by telling for example that Hydroxychloroquine works as a cure for the Coronavirus (to date at least one dead and one intoxicated after following that advice), it's politics actually harming lives with dangerous information, which makes everyone's duty to inject back common sense into the debate.
I haven't encountered many officials who have consistently spoken with "extreme caution and responsibility" on Hydroxychloroquine, or anything related to this pandemic really. As far as I can tell, it is unknown whether Hydroxychloroquine is or is not effective in treating covid patients (there are severe limits on our ability to know many things), but the vast majority of reporting I've been exposed to the matter has a very strong propaganda odour to it.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/02/health/hydroxychloroquine...
https://i.redd.it/cppndepg1s851.jpg
Personally, I now start from the default epistemic position that anything said in the media is untrue, but the degree and manner in which that is the case is unknown, and that is the part of the claim that should receive significant mental attention (which parts are objectively untrue, misrepresented (cherry picked, deliberately framed), and what noteworthy "facts" are suspiciously absent). Rare is the news story these days where nothing sets off my suspicion.
because it's the new yorker. Facts are optional, bias is required.