My COVID-19 experience: Ignoring the best advice a daughter – and expert – could offer

Nancy and Ruby Blum in 2018 at home near Creswell. Ruby is a health policy adviser for Dallas County in Texas.

I am a biologist by education. I believe in data and intelligence more than I do in prejudice or magical thinking. Despite its shortcomings, I trust people who spend their lives studying things more than those who shoot their mouths off with unfounded opinions. Opinions are easy, but knowledge is hard, and there are many…