Much harder for non-Trumpers is to recognize that many on the left, including those in the progressive field of public health, reacted with ideological intransigence. Last summer, Francis Collins, the former head of the National Institutes of Health, admitted that the “public health mind-set” had been too narrowly focused, which he now calls a mistake. Galea’s point is not to relitigate Covid’s sore points but to ask: If Americans have come to distrust public health advice, what role may public health officials have played in fostering that distrust? During the pandemic, states, municipalities, school districts, businesses — sometimes using guidance from public health organizations and sometimes ignoring it — often relied on what felt right as opposed to empirical data. American health experts advocated almost universal child vaccination; meanwhile, in Europe, experts cautioned against vaccinating young children, who were at low risk for serious illness, without more long-term data.

Source: New York Times January 18, 2024 14:39 UTC