Re: Oh, NOW our public health poohbahs tell us our COVID approach was narrow-minded

[Newsom Pelosi Disasters]

On 29 Dec 2023, Inferior Rightists Cult <patr...@protonmail.com> posted
some news:umnshi$11765$1...@dont-email.me:

> Gavi Newsom is the poster boy for incompetent COVID fuckups.

Our public health officials are getting around to admitting the
fallibility of public health officials.

Francis Collins, the former of the National Institutes of Health during
the pandemic and current science adviser to President Biden, noted that he
and his colleagues demonstrated an “unfortunate” narrow-mindedness.

This is a welcome, if belated, confession.

Not too long ago, anyone who said that epidemiologists might be overly
focused on disease prevention to the exclusion of other concerns — you
know, like jobs, mental health and schooling — were dismissed as reckless
nihilists who didn’t care if their fellow citizens died en masse.

Now, Francis Collins has weighed in to tell us that many of the people
considered close-minded and anti-science during COVID were advancing an
appropriately balanced view of the trade-offs inherent in the pandemic
response.

“If you’re a public health person, and you’re trying to make a decision,
you have this very narrow view of what the right decision is,” Collins
said at an event earlier this year that garnered attention online the last
couple of days.

This is not a new insight, or a surprising one.

It’s a little like saying Bolshevisks will be focused on nationalizing the
means of production over everything else, or a golf pro will be
monomaniacal about the proper mechanics of a swing.

The problem comes, of course, when public health, or “public health,”
becomes the only guide to public policy. Then, you are giving a group of
obsessives, who have an important role to play within proper limits, too
much power in a way that is bound to distort your society.

Francis Collins, again: “So you attach infinite value to stopping the
disease and saving a life. You attach zero value to whether this actually
totally disrupts people’s lives, ruins the economy and has many kids kept
out of school in a way that they never quite recover from.”

True and well said, but that’s an awful lot of very important things to
attach “zero value” to.

He also admitted to having an urban bias, driven by working out of
Washington, DC, and thinking almost exclusively about New York City and
other major cities.

If Collins and his cohort got it wrong, the likes of Florida Gov. Ron
DeSantis and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp — and the renegade scientists and
doctors who supported their more modulated approach to the pandemic — got
it right.

It’s always worth remembering that the pandemic was a once-in-100-years
event, and initially we had very little information and very few means to
prevent and treat the disease. It is inevitable that decision-makers are
going to make mistakes in such a crisis, and adjust as they go.

That said, the scientists who were in positions of authority could have
shown more modesty. They could have welcomed debate.

They could have distanced themselves from — or better yet, denounced — the
campaign of moral bullying carried out in their name.

Many people wanted to outsource their thinking to the experts and then,
with a great sense of righteousness, rely on arguments from authority to
demonize their opponents and shut down every policy dispute.

Francis Collins, one of the most eminent scientists in the country and a
subtle thinker who dissents from the orthodoxy that science and faith are
incompatible, would have been an ideal voice to counter the propaganda
campaigns that aimed to suppress unwelcome views and even unwelcome facts.

Instead, he stuck with his tribe.

It’s progress, though, to realize that scientists, too, are susceptible to
group-think, recency bias and parochialism; that the experts may know an
incredible amount about a very narrow area, while knowing little to
nothing about broader matters of greater consequence; that point of views
considered dangerous lunacy may, over time, prove out, so they shouldn’t
be censored or otherwise quashed.

It’s not just that the scientists acted like blinkered scientists during
the pandemic; they tolerated, or participated in, agitprop that was
inimical to the scientific spirit and to good public policy.

Twitter: @RichLowry

https://nypost.com/2023/12/28/opinion/oh-now-our-public-health-poohbahs-
tell-us-our-covid-approach-was-narrow-minded/