Red herrings, circuit-breakers and ageism in the COVID-19 debate

Humans are very diverse and although we share many similarities, we also have many differences. The social groups we belong to help form our identities (Tajfel, 1974). These differences may be difficult for some people to reconcile, which may lead to prejudice toward people who are different. Prejudice is a negative attitude and feeling toward an individual based solely on one’s membership in a particular social group (Allport, 1954; Brown, 2010). Prejudice is common against people who...

A circuit breaker is a device engineered to interrupt fault currents and sometimes reclose automatically. When a fault current is detected, the breaker separates the electrical contacts, which generates an arc. This arc is extinguished by methods such as elongation, cooling, or splitting, depending on the breaker's design. Breakers are categorized based on the voltage they operate at and the medium used for arc extinction, such as air, oil, SF6 gas, or vacuum.
In high-voltage systems,...

A heuristic is a general problem-solving framework (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). You can think of these as mental shortcuts that are used to solve problems. Different types of heuristics are used in different types of situations, and the impulse to use a heuristic occurs when one of five conditions is met (Pratkanis, 1989):

Biases can arise at various stages of research, from study design and data collection to analysis and interpretation. Recognizing and addressing these biases is essential to ensure the validity and reliability of epidemiological findings.Broadly speaking, biases in epidemiology fall into three main categories: selection bias, information bias, and confounding. A more detailed description of possible biases is:  

Automatic circuit reclosers enhance the protection of distribution circuits by interrupting and auto-reclosing an AC circuit according to a preset sequence. They effectively manage temporary faults on overhead distribution lines, often caused by tree limbs or wildlife, by briefly disrupting service to improve overall reliability. However, contact with reclosers or energized broken conductors on the ground can pose serious hazards.
A comprehensive protection scheme for radial distribution...

Radial systems employ time-delay overcurrent relays to reduce load interruptions. When a fault occurs, the nearest breaker opens first, while upstream breakers remain closed due to longer delay settings. This approach ensures minimal disruption to the rest of the system.
In a radial system with a fault downstream of the third breaker, ideally, only the third breaker will open, isolating the fault and interrupting the load connected beyond it. The second breaker has a longer delay setting,...