Last week, ABC journalist and physician Dr Norman Swan suggested the heart attacks of two high-profile people over the past year were unlikely to be a coincidence.

The suggestion was that it was too unlikely two people in their 50s died of myocardial infarction after being infected with COVID for these events not to be connected.

However, without access to any other information about the health of these people, there was no basis for making this connection. And it later emerged one of the two may never have had COVID-19 anyway.

To Dr Swan’s credit, he apologised immediately. But it highlights that no matter how well informed we are, all of us can be tripped up by errors of logic.