Early in “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” Dr. John Watson returns to the apartment at Baker Street he shares with his friend Sherlock Holmes after a day out. Holmes, having just consumed “two large pots of coffee and an incredible amount of tobacco,” instantly determines, to Watson’s surprise, that Watson had spent all day at the club. Listing the evidence that led him to this conclusion, he asks, “Is it not obvious? …The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.”
Holmes’s rejoinder could be used for any number of observations about the COVID-19 pandemic. For months we’ve known the virus doesn’t spread through surface contact or asymptomatically. We’ve also learned of the inefficacy of population-level mask-wearing — along with the many possible negative consequences — and that children are largely unharmed by the virus. People who are younger and generally healthy are extremely unlikely to die, or, if they do contract the virus, rarely have symptoms warranting hospitalization.
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