Why You Might Be Wrong About COVID-19: The Ecological Fallacy

How many coronavirus arguments misrepresent the complexities of society

Gideon M-K; Health Nerd
5 min readJul 14, 2020
Pictured: One man. Does he represent everyone? Source: Pexels

There is so much coronavirus research coming out every day that it’s hard to keep track of even a tiny bit of it, never mind everything. The same is true for COVID-19 news — there’s just so much new information that it’s hard to stay up to date with it all, no matter how hard you might try.

It’s a bit like fighting a raging wildfire using your SuperSoaker 300. It’s never going to work, and you’ll eventually get burned.

Pictured: Ineffective for forest fires. Sorry, kid Source: Pexels

One problem that keeps coming up is something that every scientist knows, but can be very counter-intuitive: the ecological fallacy. It’s present in arguments both for and against masks, it has undermined much of the discussion about vitamin D and coronavirus, and it’s just generally a problem for many of the points made in the media about COVID-19.

So what is the ecological fallacy, and why is it a problem? Let’s dig in.

Endlessly Ecological

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