Many of my social media followers have asked me why my early COVID predictions were better than those carried by the major media. That answer is longer than a column, but today let’s explore first why the experts were so wrong. In short, experts have incredibly deep expertise, but it is not very broad. They are not trained to see how their work is placed in a larger context.

Let me begin with an analogy (with slight detail changes). I was in dire need of back surgery in March. For about four months I was in debilitating pain, unable to do any form of exercise, not even a stretch. My muscles, including my heart, and my lung capacity atrophied tremendously.

When I finally had the surgery in June, the doctor imposed another six weeks of “lockdown” for me. My blood pressure shot up during this period and in preparation for the surgery I had an abnormal EKG. Yet, his only, and entire focus, was on my back recovery. All the restrictions he imposed on me were so that I would not undo the benefit of the surgery. What if I had violated the restrictions and gone jogging? I probably would not have died.

The surgeon did not give a thought to my overall health — only my back recovery. He did not say, for example, “we really need to strengthen your flabby heart. Perhaps, we need to take some risks on the back recovery to get your heart back on track.” After all, my risk of dying because of the condition of my heart is magnitudes higher than my risk of dying from reinjuring my back.

The surgeon also did not say, “locking you down for six more weeks might be really depressing for you. If my post-surgical restrictions cause you to feel depressed, please let my office know.” He also didn’t say, “if these restrictions cause you to want to harm your wife, please call our office immediately.”

Again, his sole, only, laser-like, specific concern was that my back recovery continue undisturbed.

Let’s switch now to Dr. Fauci, who I respect greatly. Dr. Fauci’s sole, laser-like focus was, specifically, “flattening the curve.” All the conversation in April, if you remember that long ago, was about slowing transmission so that the health care system would not be overwhelmed.

No reporter asked Fauci, “if these restrictions break the food distribution chain worldwide, how many people will starve to death?” (The United Nations estimates an additional 130 million). I think he would have been completely mystified by the question. No reporter asked, “if a protest developed while people are locked down, what is the increased probability that the protest will turn violent?” Again, I think he would be mystified. He would think, “What does this have to do with COVID?” His expertise, though, should extend to the following questions. “If we lockdown the country, what will the compliance rate be after 2 weeks? 6 weeks? 16 weeks?” He also may have considered, “how many U.S. deaths will the lockdown cause in terms of suicide, drug overdose, undetected cancers, stress-induced heart attacks and other ailments, etc.?

So, have we flattened the curve? It appears that we were successful! In doing so, did we doom over a hundred million people to death? Even in the United States, will the long-term consequences be vastly worse than saving tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of deaths now? That seems to be the case too.

Even though I cared about my overall health, my surgeon focused only on his expertise. Likewise, even though we care most about the overall long-term health of people, Dr. Fauci and other public health experts are focused only on COVID-19. So, at a time like this we need meta-experts, a topic I’ll take up in a future column.

Eric Dent, a former professor at The University of North Carolina at Pembroke, now teaches at Florida Gulf Coast University.