Twitter improves API usage for researchers

Google internet search for “can you have a safe infection”:

Although for most people COVID-19 causes only mild illness, it can make some people very ill. More rarely, the disease can be fatal. Older people, and those with pre- existing medical conditions (such as high blood pressure, heart problems or diabetes) appear to be more vulnerable.Feb 25, 2020 www.who.int › situation-reports › 2... Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) Situation Report

Is it misinformation to assert that a person can have a “safe infection” when the vast majority of people do not experience life threatening infections? Isn’t that like calling all BLM demonstrations riots because a small number involved property destruction?

Your point about the potential for second order infections from an initial one is well taken but doesn’t change the definition of “voluntary” in that the first is voluntary. Now that I read the article in question, I see that the proposal does consider and address the concern of second order infections. You may have an idiosyncratic definition of “voluntary” but writing about subsequent infections as if the article didn’t address them is a mischaracterization.

Mea culpa about not checking the author’s credentials claim. I uncritically accepted The Times’ assertion since it didn’t seem a point of contention. This was an oversight in my part. It isn’t correct to call it a deep dive though, I just highlighted the name, touch Look Up, and scan the first CVish source, very simple, very easy, just like Chef Tell. Now that I’ve seen the licensing issue, it doesn’t seem fair to characterize the author as unlicensed either without acknowledging that the license expired just 3 months before the article was published. The Federalist and author should have disclosed it for sure. On the whole, the author’s business experience and medical training lends more credibility to the proposed solution than the academics with no skin in the game.

Again, there doesn’t seem a clear case for classification as misinformation. Without defining “safe” as a specific threshold within a continuum of risk, the author didn’t make a claim that purposeful infection was risk-free and much of the article is spent describing risk mitigation of prescreening, monitoring and quarantining. It isn’t much different from the steps I went through to be vaccinated. Aside from your nonstandard definition of “voluntary” the author specifically describes how to mitigate secondary transmission using the best information available at the time.

Going further I think the term “misinformation” is overused and has too many potential meanings, ranging from errors, misapprehensions, discovery-diffusion latency, parody, sarcasm, and lies (coverups, scams, National strategic influence operations, statistics), and differences in judgement, perception, and perspective.