With the realization that the virus is unlikely to be eradicated, public health agencies have begun to consider what life looks like as we live with Covid-19. This presents a golden opportunity to reimagine how these agencies operate and to reflect on the lessons we’ve learned over the last few years. Critically, instead of quashing scientific debate, these agencies must change course to encourage robust debate within the scientific community to arrive at the best possible public health strategies.
For example, in October of 2020, when a group of epidemiologists from Stanford, Oxford, and Harvard, among others, issued a public statement calling for an approach they dubbed “Focused Protection,” which concentrated on shielding the most vulnerable from Covid-19, the immediate reaction from NIH Director Francis Collins was to call them “fringe” scientists and to order “a quick and devastating published take down of [the approach’s] premises.”
Today, federal health authorities are effectively promoting the idea of focused protection that they once aimed to take down. As the FDA Commissioner recently explained: “Most people are going to get Covid.” So instead of trying to shield everyone from getting this virus, the agencies are finally focusing on protecting the most vulnerable.
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