COVID-19 predictions, Dunning-Kruger Effect and the Hippocratic Oath of a Data Scientist

COVID-19 related data sources are fairly easy to find. Libraries in R and Python make it super easy to come up with pretty visualizations, models, forecasts, insights and recommendations. I have seen recommendations in areas like economics, public policy, and healthcare policy from individuals who apparently have no background in any of these fields. All of us have seen these ‘data driven’ insights. Some close friends have asked if I have been analyzing the COVID-19 datasets. Yes, I have been looking at these datasets. However, my analysis has been just out of curiosity and not with the intent of publishing my forecast or recommendations. I am not planning to make any of my analyses on COVID-19 dataset public because I sincerely believe that I am not qualified to do so.