Notable doctors and scientists have written to the Times, individually or in groups, to poke holes in Leonhardt’s coverage of the pandemic. They say that he cherry-picks sources and data, giving too much weight to people who may have medical expertise but not on infectious disease; that he argues strenuously for open schools but downplays the Covid risks for kids as well as their role in spreading the virus; that he held out Britain’s vaccination strategy as a model (right before the U.K. itself reversed course); that he underestimates how many Americans — not all over age 65 — are at elevated risk or live with people at elevated risk. He tends, they say, to look at the virus’ impact on individuals, not the pandemic’s impact on society.

“To argue that we should just get on with life because boosted individuals (like himself) face relatively low personal risk of death from the virus misses so much,” Cecilia Tomori, director of global health and community health at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing tweeted about Leonhardt’s journalism this week. “The entire framing is wrong. Infectious diseases are inherently about social interaction.”

One letter to the Times from a group of prominent pandemic experts, obtained by Nightly (though with the full list of signatures withheld), called his reporting “irresponsible and dangerous.”