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Health officers are officers of the executive branch in nearly every typical jurisdiction I can think of. They are an extension of the governor/mayor/county ex

Health officers are officers of the executive branch in nearly every typical jurisdiction I can think of. They are an extension of the governor/mayor/county executive, who can usually overrule/fire/replace/choose different decisions. And the elected officials are perfectly free to be accountable for the decisions of the executive. I think the deeper issue here is the much-commented popular distrust or 2nd guessing of "experts". I guess a disease that has a long incubation time and highly variable susceptibility just brings out the worst in people's judgement capabilities.

lbeltrame 6y ago
> I think the deeper issue here is the much-commented popular distrust or 2nd guessing of "experts" Experts are human, and so they make mistakes like everyone else. See the German study on the autopsies and thrombosis, for example. A similar finding was reported in my country and immediately slammed by some high profile experts (same with convalescent plasma therapy). Some experts are saying that social distancing is useless against this disease. Others let out contradictory statements to the general public. For those who aren't equipped to understand that at least part of it (some of it is narcissism, but that's another story) is part of the general scientific discourse, it is absolutely understandable to not trust them fully. And even more when the same experts (speaking of my country) said in February that it wasn't a big deal (but few if any admitted they made a mistake).