COVID-19 cases are climbing and sanity is declining. Here are seven cognitive distortions I routinely see when it comes to talking about SARS-CoV-2.

1. Misusing Both-Sidesing

Both-sidesing occurs when the media present two sides as equally valid, when one in fact is wrong. It gives false equivalence to a flawed idea. For instance, a debate on whether the earth is round or flat would be both-sidesing.

However, if you introduce pandemic restrictions that have never or rarely been implemented before — travel bans, school and business closures, mask mandates, and military enforced lockdowns (as in Australia) — it is inevitable some smart people will feel the harms outweigh the benefits, and equally inevitable that other smart people will feel we aren’t doing enough. In these cases, having a forum to debate the ideas is not both-sidesing, but rather the legitimate purpose of media and universities.

Recently, dueling editorials — one by MedPage Today Editor-in-Chief Marty Makary, MD, and Cody Meissner, MD, which argued against masking children in schools, and one by Kanecia Zimmerman, MD, and Danny Benjamin, MD, which argued in favor […]