epidemiologists aren't experts at THIS, wtf are they experts in?
They are experts, but aren't used to rapid analysis with incomplete data.
The very early data (early-mid January) was very unclear. This is completely normal with a new disease (just look at how the US has to rely on newspapers and universities for national reporting numbers!)
But epidemiologists are reluctant to guess when we weren't even sure about the transmission mechanism, how infectious it is, incubation times, or even hospitalisation numbers (don't forget it's a respiratory disease and there was no test available until well into January)
(Not an epidemiologist, but I've had papers published by the CDC on epidemiology)
That’s spot on, and a great comment on times of crisis in general. In times of peace, leaders in most fields are not chosen for their ability to quickly make the best decision from uncertain data.
There are a few exceptions, e.g. some military commanders with real field experience. Some stock market speculators. A rare few skilled politicians. But the vast majority know the tools, rituals and heuristics of their trade, and apply them blindly. This normally works well. But during times of crisis, when knowledge is uncertain and data changes rapidly, it leads to huge mistakes. Like clockwork, one after the other.
I could go on and on about examples of this from different fields, observed only during the last 6 weeks.
A better way to think about this is that an epidemiologists take the inside view (because they are experts at the inside view) while the generalists take the outside view (because that is what they are good at).
In scenarios with high uncertainty in parameters, the outside view can perform as well as or better than the inside view.
As a bonus, they probably got burnt a bit by the bird flu nothingburger. That will be conductive neither of them speaking up when not being certain and of politicians listening to them.
Instead of bird flu being a lucky near-miss wake-up call (it spawned Contagion which laid out the issue in an easy to digest movie format!), it became an excuse to hit the snooze button.
That's a bad take: even in the US the CDC built a bunch of knowledge and systems ready to respond to another epidemic like bird flu. Unfortunately it all got thrown away over the last couple of years.
Other countries that were hit by it and by SARS or MERS were ready for it.
They are experts, but aren't used to rapid analysis with incomplete data.
The very early data (early-mid January) was very unclear. This is completely normal with a new disease (just look at how the US has to rely on newspapers and universities for national reporting numbers!)
But epidemiologists are reluctant to guess when we weren't even sure about the transmission mechanism, how infectious it is, incubation times, or even hospitalisation numbers (don't forget it's a respiratory disease and there was no test available until well into January)
(Not an epidemiologist, but I've had papers published by the CDC on epidemiology)