No abstract

In 2019, the medical historian Mark Honigsbaum concluded his book The Pandemic Century by saying: "The only thing that is certain is that there will be new plagues and new pandemics. It is not a question of if, but when." 1 Look around and you might wonder if he was hopelessly wrong. Not about the pandemic, which turned up almost before his ink was dry, but about there being only one certainty. In the "science" of covid-19, certainties seem to be everywhere. Commentators on every side-academic, practitioner, old media or new-apparently know exactly what's going on and exactly what to do about it. We are not talking about those who insist that hydroxychloroquine will save us all, or who call face masks "muzzles" or "face nappies," or who declare that many detected covid-19 cases are false positives. We can also leave aside those who sidestep reality to suggest that we'll have a world free of covid-19 within months if we simply follow their advice.