Whatever one's political views, the end goal regarding the coronavirus (COVID-19) is the same – to minimize the number of people dying and suffering from severe disease. As commentators have repeatedly noted, we need genuine expertise for that. Beyond involving scientists and physicians in decision-making, there are three steps in determining what that expertise should look like and how we tap into it most effectively.
First, the experts can inform decision-making, even if uncertainty will remain. While we can all agree on the end point – no one dying – how to get there is not clear, even to the experts. Rigorous expert judgment and a respect for science are therefore required. Expertise is developed not just from professional training, but from experience in using that training over and over, building up a store of experience that makes one a better expert.
Ultimately, however, the choices in uncertain situations are the province of democratically elected leaders. Much as a patient in a physician's office must choose a path of treatment based on the doctor's advice, elected leaders must make decisions affecting an entire population. These choices are ripe for controversy because there is no one obvious choice about how best to stop the spread of COVID-19 in a way that minimizes disruption of the economy and our daily lives.
But none of that obviates the needs for decision-making to be informed. Rather, decisions made on behalf of an entire population need to be even better informed. More than that, in a democracy, the public is entitled to transparency and to candor. The necessity of relying on expertise cannot be used as a justification for not explaining resulting policies.
Second, a broad range of expertise is needed. Policymakers need information and advice concerning how deadly the disease is, how it can be treated, and how its future trajectory is modelled. There must also be an understanding of how people are infected; what the best and safest ways to diagnose people are; and what measures are practically possible to limit the spread of the virus.
To generate this knowledge, the government needs to draw on a range of disciplines, experiences, and types of knowledge. Much of this already exists, and some of it is being assembled as quickly as possible. That might mean that expertise and knowledge required to make cogent policy choices change and evolve.
Finally, the expertise needed to develop the comprehensive response to COVID-19 cannot be siloed. The "best" response to COVID-19 will be a multifaceted approach that encompasses considerations of safety, fairness, the economy and much else besides. Various types of expertise need to be consulted and integrated. An institutional structure is needed to bring this expertise together for making practical, lifesaving decisions.
This process is challenging. It requires integrating models, statistics, economic analysis, and psychological insights. It also requires integrating information from a diverse range of international, national, and private institutions. That process needs to be quick, and it needs to be iterative. Mistakes will be made, so learning from mistakes is needed.
The good news is that such structures do exist. Integrating expertise for decision-making is at the heart and soul of the administrative state. True, President Trump has attempted to deconstruct that state, and is generally contemptuous of the notion that somebody else might know more about a topic than he does, but government's expert capacity and its architecture still exist. The government has built up its expertise over the last 200 years. It rests not just in particular expert staff members, but organizational structures, committee, structures, civil service professionalism, accountability processes, and much else besides.
To move ahead, it is not enough to say we need expertise. Elected leaders need to be informed by expert judgment, expert judgment should be based on the integration of available knowledge, and the choices that are made should be explained to the public. While none of this is easy, particularly under crisis conditions, it is what government has done in the past and what it can do now.
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Liz Fisher, Sidney A. Shapiro | March 25, 2020
Whatever one's political views, the end goal regarding the coronavirus (COVID-19) is the same – to minimize the number of people dying and suffering from severe disease. As commentators have repeatedly noted, we need genuine expertise for that. Beyond involving scientists and physicians in decision-making, there are three steps in determining what that expertise should look like and how we tap into it most effectively.
Darya Minovi | March 24, 2020
As the coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to spread around the globe, the inequalities in American society have come into even sharper relief. People with low incomes who are unable to work from home risk being exposed to the virus at work or losing their jobs altogether. Their children may no longer have access to free or reduced-price meals at school. They are also less likely to have health insurance, receive new drugs, or have access to primary or specialty care, putting them at a greater risk of succumbing to the illness. As with any shock to the system – natural disaster, conflict, and now a pandemic – vulnerable populations are hit hardest and have a harder time bouncing back.
Katie Tracy | March 23, 2020
As the coronavirus (COVID-19) sweeps the planet, it threatens billions of people and all but promises a global economic recession of uncertain magnitude. As I'm sure you are, I’m deeply concerned about what this means for my family, my neighbors, and my broader community.
Katie Tracy | March 23, 2020
In a previous post, Katie Tracy explored five essential elements of an effective response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. They included closure of all nonessential businesses, paid sick leave and family medical leave, health and safety standards for infectious diseases, hazard pay, and workers' compensation. Here are five more things we need to protect workers and our economy from the crisis.
James Goodwin | March 19, 2020
Earlier this week, a group of 25 Center for Progressive Reform (CPR) Board Members, Member Scholars, and staff signed a joint letter urging Russell Vought, Acting Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), to direct federal agencies to hold open active public comment periods for pending rulemakings amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The letter further urges Vought to extend comment periods for at least 30 days beyond the end of the crisis.
K.K. DuVivier | March 19, 2020
Offshore wind holds huge promise as a renewable electricity source. Using existing turbine technologies, the U.S. potential is 2,058,000 megawatts (MW), enough to generate double the electricity demand of the entire United States in 2015. About 80 percent of that electricity demand is along the coasts, so getting the power to the public could prove easier than transmitting it from wind-rich midwestern states. Utilities from eight states up and down the East Coast from Maine to Virginia have committed to procuring 22,500 MW of offshore wind so far, and wind power appeared poised to take off when the Department of the Interior awarded 11 commercial offshore leases in 2016.
Alexandra Klass | March 18, 2020
Our vast public lands and waters are both a major contributor to the global climate crisis and a potential solution to the problem. The extraction and use of oil and gas resources from public lands and waters produce 20 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. If the public lands were its own nation, it would be the fifth largest global emitter of GHGs. The scale of this problem has been exacerbated by the current administration.
Daniel Farber | March 18, 2020
Now that President Trump has belatedly declared a national emergency, what powers does he have to respond to the coronavirus pandemic? There has been a lot of talk about this on the Internet, some of it off-base. It's important to get the law straight. For instance, there's been talk about whether Trump should impose a national curfew, but I haven't been able to find any legal authority for doing that so far. The legal discussion of this issue is still at an early stage, but here are some of the major sources of power and how they might play out.
Karen Sokol | March 16, 2020
"This report is a catalogue of weather in 2019 made more extreme by climate change, and the human misery that went with it." That is the statement of Brian Hoskins, chair of Imperial College in London's Grantham Institute for Climate Change, about the recently released State of the Climate in 2019 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the WMO compiles information from scientists all over the world that has been a key driver of international climate law and policymaking. One of the IPCC's reports was similarly dire to that of the WMO's, but not without hope.