Lagging indicators are what might have been the case awhile ago. (Maybe with error bars.)
If you treat a lagging indicator as factual about today, it's not just wrong, it might be out of phase. (Naively, it indicates doing the opposite of what's appropriate in present conditions.)
"MERS is not known to have hybridized with SAR-CoV-2 at the World Cup" is correct about the lagging indicator and no one knows about the present.
People aren't so skilled at decision making with lagging indicators.
Thing is, the only thing we've got with pandemics or climate are lagging indicators.
"Today isn't so bad" might or not be a prompt falsehood -- depends on who, when, and where you ask -- but it's inherently a trend falsehood.
About the climate, until atmospheric carbon dumping stably trends to zero; about any pandemic until Rₜ stably trends to zero.
Rₜ and CO2 ppm are both lagging indicators, but they've got explanatory power about trend because they're measuring the cause.
Anyone in a position of public trust who is trying to get the conversation off a causal indicator on to a non-causal indicator -- trying to go from Rₜ to ICU occupancy, or trying to go from PPM CO2 to degrees of warming -- is actively, consciously working to make a bad decision.
At least from the viewpoint of public trust; from an immediate personal viewpoint, it seems there's usually a lot of money in bad decisions.
Graydon
Ellenor Bjornsdottir 
