Taking uncertainty seriously

No doubt, scientists are working relentlessly to find answers to the many questions and solutions to the pandemic. But the desperate situation appears to excite desperate measures.13 We are lead into what has been called a “once-in-a century evidence fiasco.”14
In order to target our efforts to reduce uncertainty, we need to pay attention to the various kinds of uncertainty. Reducing risk15 and fundamental uncertainty is in vain if ambiguity prevails. For example, increasing test accuracy (technically) has shown to be of little help when the sampling method or validation procedure is inappropriate. Correspondingly, great treatment efforts can be futile if we ignore important factors for preventing, diagnosing, or treating COVID-19.
Hence, the tasks for scientists strongly depend on the kinds of uncertainty. Correspondingly, our tasks are fourfold and mapped in Table 2.
Table 1 Tasks for scientists corresponding to the four types of uncertainty.