by Thomas R. Wells
Covid-19 reminds us once again that we can’t do without politics, or, to put it another way, we can’t do well without doing politics well.
‘Science’ can’t decide the right thing to do about Covid, however appealing it might be to imagine we could dump this whole mess on a bunch of epidemiologists in some ivory tower safely beyond the reach of grubby political bickering. This is not because scientists don’t know enough. The scientific understanding of Covid is a work in progress and hence uncertain and incomplete, but such imperfect knowledge can still be helpful. The reason is that since Covid became an epidemic it is no longer a merely scientific problem. Dealing with it requires balancing conflicting values and the interests of multitudes of people and organisations. This is an essentially political challenge that scientists lack the conceptual apparatus or legitimacy to address.
Epidemiologists can inform the political process but not replace it. In particular, they can advise governments on the sources of risk and the projected levels of risk associated with different Covid policies. However, as we have seen in the various approaches to lockdown and rollback around the world, how governments address Covid does not follow directly from their different epidemiological circumstances. Governments make two specific political choices well or badly: how much Covid risk to tolerate and how that risk ‘budget’ should be allocated between competing social needs and interest groups. Read more »