[Goose]

I live in a conservative county.  The Board of Supervisors overruled the County Health
official so she quit and soon we had more cases.  We moved to Orange this week like SC but in our case it could have been sooner if the Politicans had listened.  But heck everyone knows science .

I think the County Health Officer needs to make an argument for their policy decisions. It is important to remember that public policy is not, and can never be science. Science is a system of truths. Many of these "truths" have large error bars and probabilities associated therewith. That is part of the science. Public policy can and should be guided by science, but it involves value judgements that science cannot provide. It also involves estimating human behavior. A particular set of actions may be attractive because science tells us that they would reduce mortality by some percentage, subject to some (probably non-small) uncertainty. However, if the politicians believe the public simply will not comply then such a policy may be less effective than one that while scientifically less desirable is executable. It may be true that the error bars on the science are large making the actual damage uncertain. It also may be that the actual "costs" of a scientifically optimum strategy are large and very certain. These facts make the decision necessarily unscientific.

I am not saying I agree with your county supervisors. I am saying the decision is not and cannot be a scientific one. It is a political one, in the sense of the body politic. Hopefully the County Health Officer can inform the supervisors and they can reach a mutual understanding, if not agreement. In your county, that didn't happen. Resigning is probably a good option in that case.

[Goose]

I live in a conservative county.  The Board of Supervisors overruled the County Health
official so she quit and soon we had more cases.  We moved to Orange this week like SC but in our case it could have been sooner if the Politicans had listened.  But heck everyone knows science .

I think the County Health Officer needs to make an argument for their policy decisions. It is important to remember that public policy is not, and can never be science. Science is a system of truths. Many of these "truths" have large error bars and probabilities associated therewith. That is part of the science. Public policy can and should be guided by science, but it involves value judgements that science cannot provide. It also involves estimating human behavior. A particular set of actions may be attractive because science tells us that they would reduce mortality by some percentage, subject to some (probably non-small) uncertainty. However, if the politicians believe the public simply will not comply then such a policy may be less effective than one that while scientifically less desirable is executable. It may be true that the error bars on the science are large making the actual damage uncertain. It also may be that the actual "costs" of a scientifically optimum strategy are large and very certain. These facts make the decision necessarily unscientific.

I am not saying I agree with your county supervisors. I am saying the decision is not and cannot be a scientific one. It is a political one, in the sense of the body politic. Hopefully the County Health Officer can inform the supervisors and they can reach a mutual understanding, if not agreement. In your county, that didn't happen. Resigning is probably a good option in that case.