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You are correct. However, some elected officials have (for incompetence, or just wanting to deflect responsibility) completely abdicated from their functions, a

You are correct. However, some elected officials have (for incompetence, or just wanting to deflect responsibility) completely abdicated from their functions, and they act (or say they act) like whatever the experts tell them. "We'll reopen when the scientists say so" was a common mantra the past two months in my country. That's an admission of giving up responsibility, IMO. On top of that, experts not always agree, which makes things even more confusing. Some say (again, my country) that masks and social distancing are "worthless" (in favor of indefinitely long lockdowns), others say that they might work, others say that they definitely work.

rbg246 6y ago
What would be a better course of action to take in this crisis? Would you have preferred for your elected leaders to not have taken the consensus expert view? Or do you think the consensus view of experts is not agreed upon currently?
- lbeltrame 6y ago
  The latter. I believe there's no real consensus at this point, save for a few points, of which the minutiae require more investigation. A lot on this virus is being learned "on the go" as the situation develops. Also, some choices made at the time were made in haste, now, like the Science blog warned about "pandemic research exceptionalism", we need to make sure that public policy is subject to the same rigorous line of thinking (an extreme example of not doing so is the bleaching of a beach in Spain), IOW no decisions simply "because it's a crisis". Public policy and elected officials need to be aware of these unknowns when taking decisions, especially since many of these, in one way or the other, carry negative externalities.
  - rbg246 6y ago
    Interesting. My take has been that they have taken a conservative action with regards to the virus, I've seen locking down as a way for the government to slow down time to try and work out what is going on before then taking a more considered point of view. There was so much confusion in mid March about what would happen and lockdowns seem to have slowed things down a bit to get a clear head about what the path through is going to be like and I hope they don't rush their next decisions as there are so many things that are still not known. In the future these current decisions could be wrong and will be wrong, I'm hoping that they aren't badly wrong but who knows... It seems to be considered on what mainstream scientific consensus but that's been wrong before but I feel it's the best we have given the situation.

rbg246 6y ago

What would be a better course of action to take in this crisis? Would you have preferred for your elected leaders to not have taken the consensus expert view? Or do you think the consensus view of experts is not agreed upon currently?

lbeltrame 6y ago
The latter. I believe there's no real consensus at this point, save for a few points, of which the minutiae require more investigation. A lot on this virus is being learned "on the go" as the situation develops. Also, some choices made at the time were made in haste, now, like the Science blog warned about "pandemic research exceptionalism", we need to make sure that public policy is subject to the same rigorous line of thinking (an extreme example of not doing so is the bleaching of a beach in Spain), IOW no decisions simply "because it's a crisis". Public policy and elected officials need to be aware of these unknowns when taking decisions, especially since many of these, in one way or the other, carry negative externalities.
- rbg246 6y ago
  Interesting. My take has been that they have taken a conservative action with regards to the virus, I've seen locking down as a way for the government to slow down time to try and work out what is going on before then taking a more considered point of view. There was so much confusion in mid March about what would happen and lockdowns seem to have slowed things down a bit to get a clear head about what the path through is going to be like and I hope they don't rush their next decisions as there are so many things that are still not known. In the future these current decisions could be wrong and will be wrong, I'm hoping that they aren't badly wrong but who knows... It seems to be considered on what mainstream scientific consensus but that's been wrong before but I feel it's the best we have given the situation.