How many epidemiology classes have you taken? How many public health administration classes have you taken? How many college-level math classes have you taken ever?

How old are you, for that matter? I’m 31, I have two children and a mortgage, I’m a cancer-survivor, and I have not only had education in school, but also plenty of real-world lived experiences, so your “plenty of young people right out of college” assertion can go and take a whole stadium full of seats. On the contrary, plenty of older people will like to pretend that their aged wisdom can stand in for any amount of actual learning and it simply does not, particularly when it comes to science, where realities may well be counter-intuitive.

You are the one out of your depth here. You said “this is not statistics,” when that is exactly what it is, demonstrating that you have literally less than no idea what you’re talking about, you’re inventing reasons that people with education in the field are wrong and you, a layperson with no education in the field or upper-level related education, is definitely right.

“An equation they probably took out of a book,” so you didn’t read their methodology, likely because you wouldn’t be able to understand it if you did - and I do mean that you lack the conceptual knowledge to understand.

“I am not a master of this subject,” is where you should stop. Full stop. Because you don’t know BS when you see it if you haven’t learned anything about the topic. I’d wager you are not even a novice at this subject. That’s why I’m not addressing whatever you deem to be “obvious flaws.” Because you have no idea what you’re talking about and it would take me too long to teach you a semester of quantitative literacy to explain why.