A reappraisal of COVID-19 epidemiology after the pandemic: models, data, and interventions

This is a summary of a presentation given in October 2023 at the Academy of Sciences in Bologna. COVID-19 was a major crisis that witnessed massive mobilization of the scientific workforce. Almost a million scientific articles were published on COVID-19 within less than 4 years, most of them of low quality. Several key components of the narrative that prevailed in the pandemic response were misleading and they affected both the credibility of science and public health and the health of billions of people worldwide. Rigorous evidence and a judicious approach to re-evaluating decision-making is needed to revert the tide and regain competence within the scientific community and trust among the general public.