Flam Slams Wrong Folks on COVID

Science writer Faye Flam argues that "It's Past Time Scientists Admitted Their COVID Mistakes."

Trained in science myself, I have to agree and disagree. Yes: Anyone worthy of that occupation will seek truth at all times and will need no urging to correct an error. But no: While some scientists -- and people really only posing as such -- promoted bad policies during the pandemic, scientists as such have zero power to violate individual rights on the massive scale we suffered during the pandemic.

Flam all but admits as much in the following paragraph, which is the crux of her piece:

Even as early as January and February of 2020, the US public health community was making unforced errors. Evidence mounted week after week that this disease was wreaking havoc in China and spreading around the world. Health authorities should have been scrambling to prepare hospitals and nursing homes, to create tests that worked, and to develop a strategy for contact tracing and virus monitoring. They should have warned people of possible business and school closures ahead. [bold added]

Later on, she goes further:

Even at the time, scientists should have been clearer when they were basing policies on educated guesses.

Insofar as Flam is commenting on the scientific issues behind the policies being imposed by the government (aka the "public health community"), she is absolutely correct: To the extent that science can affect a government policy, scientists the government consults must go out of the way to be sure they are correct, including admitting mistakes and recommending course changes when necessary. And part of changing course emphatically includes owning any past mistake and explaining why there will (or should) be a course change.

But we aren't governed by scientists, and the blame doesn't lie entirely with them. And one should never take a scientist to task for admitting We didn't know, at least when that is the truth and that scientist is discussing a scientific question.

As for policy, why would we expect great answers from scientists, given that political philosophy is an entirely different discipline than the one they chose to specialize in?

The most disastrous aspects of the pandemic response were due to massive violations of individual rights by the government, whose job it is to protect those rights, not to cure or protect us from disease.

Insofar as government might sometimes appear to to protect us disease, it is (or should) actually be protecting us from having our rights violated by other people, namely by others intentionally or negligently getting us sick.

The real lesson from the pandemic is that governments the world over were ill-prepared for this foreseeable circumstance, both in terms of how they understood their basic remit and in terms of applying that remit to a pandemic.

Fortunately, the good people at the Ayn Rand Institute foresaw the need for the conversation that actually needs to take place before the next pandemic, when there is ample time to think about policy. In that vein, I once again recommend the white paper "A Pro-Freedom Approach to Infectious Disease," by Onkar Ghate:

We need laws that focus government with laser-like precision on its proper goal: to remove the active threat posed by carriers of severe infectious diseases.

I highly recommend the whole thing, which is available at the link (also in PDF or podcast form). To give an idea of the wide-ranging and well-considered nature of the document, I have reproduced the table of contents below:

• Executive Summary
• I. WE MUST DEMAND BETTER FROM GOVERNMENT.
• Our response to SARS-CoV-2 was un-American.
• The alternative to coercive, statewide lockdowns was not two million dead.
• A truly American response requires new laws.
• II. THE LAW SHOULD FOCUS GOVERNMENT ON STOPPING THE THREAT POSED BY CARRIERS OF INFECTIOUS DISEASE.
  • We need to legally specify a threshold for when infectious diseases qualify as active threats.
  • We need to legally delimit appropriate coercive interventions.
  • Proper laws would focus government on one task: to test, isolate and track carriers of infectious disease.
• III. IN PRACTICE, PROPER LAWS WOULD HAVE ENSURED GOVERNMENT WAS PREPARED TO TEST AND ISOLATE CARRIERS OF SARS-CoV-2.
  • With better laws we would have had Taiwan's level of readiness.
  • With better laws we would have had South Korea's widespread, strategic ability to test.
• IV. WHEN GOVERNMENT IS UNABLE TO ISOLATE MOST CARRIERS OF AN INFECTIOUS DISEASE, THE LAW MUST LEAVE US FREE TO ACT.
  • If government is unable to isolate most of the infected, the law should grant it few additional powers.
  • An improper public health goal led to coercive statewide lockdowns.
  • The proper public health goal is for government to protect our right to the pursuit of health.
  • This means government's public health goal is not to coercively "flatten the curve."
  • But during a pandemic, government must be transparent and explain how government-controlled healthcare will be rationed.
  • The law should prohibit statewide lockdowns and require governmental transparency.
• V. IN PRACTICE, IF GOVERNMENT HAD NOT POSSESSED THE POWER OF STATEWIDE LOCKDOWNS, THE RESPONSE TO THE UNCONTAINED SPREAD OF SARS-CoV-2 WOULD HAVE BEEN FAR BETTER.
  • Governmental action would have been more strategic, targeted and effective.
  • Private action would have been more strategic, targeted and effective.
• VI. WHAT YOU CAN DO
  • Write your representatives in government.
  • Do you have a comment or question?

A version of the above (with links to relevant parts of the paper) exists at the ARI site.

-- CAV