373 Part Two / Covid as Political Defeat / Abby Cartus

Epidemiologist and writer Abby Cartus returns to continue our discussion about the so-called successes and failures of public health, particularly as it relates to the ongoing pandemic. In this interview, I asked Abby to clarify the kinds of data that are collected—mainly from wastewater sites—and how that data is modeled and presented at this phase of the pandemic. How does this impose limitations on our view of the current rates of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the US population? After establishing what can be understood, and not understood, from wastewater data, I asked Abby to raise her critique of how this data is being modeled and presented by the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative, a popular and well regarded resource often cited by covid cautious and public health advocacy individuals and groups, and what this indicates about not only where we are at this phase of the pandemic, but how data and statistics are underlaid by ideological assumptions that deserve examination. // Episode notes: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/abby-cartus // Sustain + support: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness // Donate: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast