I think I’m asking too much of a Forbes piece but how is the author defining denial? It’s not clear what evidence is being presented so much as a hypothesis that ‘denial’ is a causal factor in our behaviour toward x.

For example, we know that people use tobacco for many reasons that don’t have to do with denial of science (eg stress, advertisement, etc). Likewise for other diseases. And that’s before you get to tradeoffs as a legit issue. I guess it seems to simplistic? But again, I might be asking for too much😂

Yeah, I think it's too much to ask. 😏 Anyhow, I think his understanding of denial is implicit in this piece. He refers to previous global health emergencies and how it took a lot of time for leaders and the general public to finally grasp and accept what the evidence was showing.