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The Observer view: coronavirus crisis shows how much we need experts | Observer editorial


‘People with knowledge should talk about it, not football managers.” Such was the refreshingly honest response of Jürgen Klopp when pressed for his views about coronavirus by journalists last week. “My opinion about corona is not important.” The Liverpool manager’s comments embody an important sentiment that seems to have emerged in this outbreak: a reappraisal of the importance of experts in the wake of their denigration by populist leaders around the world.

This government is not a fan of experts. For months, it has repeatedly ignored warnings from scientists, trade experts and economists about the impact of a hard Brexit on the country’s economic wellbeing and security. It has implicitly declared war on the civil service: aides and advisers liberally brief against “the blob” and its perceived resistance to ripping up a supposedly pointless rulebook. But thankfully – perhaps with as much a view to protecting its own political fortunes as well as public health – ministers have temporarily put their hostility towards experts and civil servants aside. Last week, we criticised the government’s slow response to the crisis: holding back ministers from news programmes that had caused it offence; taking days to call a meeting of Cobra chaired by the PM. But as the government has moved from the “contain” to the “delay” phase of its response, there has been a marked improvement.

Boris Johnson gave a press conference flanked by the government’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, and its chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance. Decision-making is clearly being driven by medical and scientific expertise. The government quickly corrected a major misstep when it at first announced it would stop publishing daily information on the location and numbers of patients testing positive. As stressed by the World Health Organization, information and transparency about the extent of the outbreak and plans to deal with it are vital in building public trust; on the whole, the government has been very open about its strategy. There is a sense that the UK response is striking the right balance, issuing accurate and useful information that has avoided over-hyping the risk, and making proportionate responses to try to delay the spread of the virus that do not engender panic.

That is not to say that the government’s response has been beyond reproach. It was extremely worrying that the health secretary, Matt Hancock, said that he had been in touch with supermarkets to work on plans to ensure that people in self-isolation would be able to get the food and supplies they need, only for industry executives to accuse him of lying. It undermines the reassurances he offered that the government is confident there will be no problem with the food supply. It reinforces the importance of ministers being truthful rather than relying on bluster.

While the government’s short-term response has, on the whole, been good, a decade of austerity has put the public infrastructure required to manage a pandemic – the NHS, the social care system, the police service – under intolerable strain. It is no exaggeration to say that, as a result, under a worst-case scenario more people will die than necessary. Scientists have also raised fears about the UK’s lack of capacity for vaccine manufacture in preventing future waves of this virus from affecting the population, which is partly as a result of the government’s failure to invest in this years ago.

Casting an eye across the Atlantic, to the chaos of the US response, provides a salutary reminder of just how much further Donald Trump is prepared to go than Boris Johnson in his war on experts. Trump has repeatedly contradicted medical experts and consequently confused the public health messaging. “We closed it down, we stopped it,” he said on Friday, arguing that this justified his tightening of border controls. He labelled the WHO statistics as “a really false number” and the New York Times has reported that his administration has told a top infectious disease expert not to say anything to the press without clearance.

There are also huge concerns about the capacity of the US to deal with the virus outbreak, given its lack of health infrastructure and employment rights relative to the EU. Almost one in 10 Americans have no health insurance and will have to meet any costs of treatment – and perhaps even testing for the virus – out of pocket. There is a shortage of testing kits and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have refused to publish statistics about how many people have been tested. There is no legal entitlement to sick pay in the US, meaning millions of low-paid workers living in poverty will simply not be able to afford to self-isolate as a containment measure.

What is unfolding in the US is exposing in real time the dangers of populism and its rejection of evidence and experts. And societies’ responses to the crisis are casting a spotlight on their key vulnerabilities and fragilities. In America, it is the lack of a universal entitlement to healthcare and basic employment rights in one of the world’s richest countries. In Britain, coronavirus has only brought to the fore concerns about the brittle system for caring for older people, who are most at risk of the virus, many of whom suffer from social isolation.

“I’m very proud that UK experts… are on the frontline of global efforts,” Johnson said on Friday, in an about-turn for a prime minister who has made ignoring experts a defining characteristic of his leadership. But will this newly found sense of pride last beyond the coronavirus crisis? That very much remains to be seen.



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