They Blinded Us With “Science”

Throughout the pandemic, political leaders have consistently relied on questionable expert guidance—and ducked responsibility for their own choices.

John Tierney June 7, 2020

How would our leaders get through this pandemic without “the science”?

It’s never been obvious just what “the science” is, or why anyone would speak of science as a single truth, but the role it plays is quite clear. It’s the modern equivalent of the Oracle of Delphi, that mysterious font of guidance that Greek leaders consulted during wars and other crises. However foolish or sensible the advice may be, the oracle gives leaders an excuse to duck responsibility for decisions—and their consequences.

Why, for instance, was the upstate New York economy shut down for more than two months, despite the small number of cases of Covid-19 in rural counties? Why, as some offices and barber shops and other upstate businesses were finally about to reopen at the end of May, did Governor Andrew Cuomo infuriate local officials by suddenly announcing that this decision could not be made by them—or even by himself?

“We’ll give the experts all the data,” he explained. “And if they say we should move forward, we move forward.” Everyone’s fate now rests with the new oracles.

By “the experts,” Cuomo meant the consultants brought in to oversee the state’s reopening: an epidemiologist from the University of Minnesota and a statistician from Imperial College in London. When he introduced them at a press conference in mid-May, he explained that reopening was “not a political exercise.”

“This is about facts and science and data,” he said. “It’s math and there’s a liberation in that.”
It may be liberating for politicians to blame economic devastation on someone else, but it’s ridiculous to pretend that epidemiologists and statisticians have magical formulae for determining the costs and benefits of the shutdown. They can estimate how quickly the virus is spreading, but they don’t know exactly what effect the various lockdown measures have on viral spread, let alone on people’s lives and livelihoods.

The “metrics” now ruling New York’s policy sound reassuringly precise, like the requirement that a region must have 30 percent of its hospital beds free in order to enter the next phase of the reopening—as upstate counties were finally allowed to do on May 29, once the oracles had reviewed the data. New York City did not qualify then because only 28 percent of its hospital beds were free.

How do the experts know that 28 percent is too little and 30 percent is enough? They don’t. They’ve made a guess. It’s an educated guess, because it’s informed by their profession, but it’s also biased by their profession. Their careers depend on stopping the spread of the virus, not on making sure that children can learn or adults can work.

So when these experts ponder trade-offs, they err on the side of their profession. It would be much easier for restaurants and other businesses to operate if customers had to stay just three feet apart, in line with the World Health Organization’s recommendation of one-meter social distancing. But public-health authorities would rather play it safe by doubling the distance. They don’t know how many lives this will save, and they certainly don’t know how many businesses will be bankrupted by it. That’s not their job...................“At a time of such division in politics and elections and all this garbage,” Cuomo said, “this is an exercise in science and math.” It does involve science and math, but it’s also an exercise in passing the buck...........To Read More....