Another example of dishonesty or at least disingenuousness: certain countries’ health ministers pushing for further restrictions after already admitting in inte

Another example of dishonesty or at least disingenuousness: certain countries’ health ministers pushing for further restrictions after already admitting in interviews that their populations are no longer observing previous restrictions. Here the expert's job performance is judged solely by how proactive he looks; he simply has to push for restrictions. Yet now the effective anti-COVID approach might be to slightly step back from restrictions and allow restaurant terraces to reopen – most people meeting each other in spite of restrictions are doing it indoors out of public view, but you really want to make them meet outdoors in the open air where spread is much less likely. Or consider this example: Devi Sridhar, one of the UK scientific advisors, is a proponent of keeping UK borders closed for the next several years and requiring expensive hotel quarantines like Australia or New Zealand. In interviews, she has depicted people opposing this policy as simply "upset they can't go on holiday". In fact, much of travel from the UK is not inane holidaymaking but going to see family abroad – it’s an immigrant-heavy country – and the less affluent couldn’t afford hotel quarantine on return. Here we have an expert putting up a caricature, because being honest about the impact of policies would weaken her push.