Opinion | As coronavirus information evolved, so did guidance
In his Sept. 14 op-ed, “Questions for the heretofore unquestionable,” George F. Will assigned the same certainty to scientific predictions for the future as to legal assertions of the past. Unfortunately, retrospective analyses and the results of prospective hypotheses do not always coincide.
He criticized epidemiologists in the first months of the appearance of a novel virus for not favoring “targeting protection for the most vulnerable: the elderly and others with comorbidities,” which was later modified. He criticized infectious-disease specialist Anthony S. Fauci’s pronouncement in March 2020 that “there’s no reason to be walking around with a mask” when transmissibility was still unknown. Those statements were made when knowledge was based on other viruses and were updated when studies proved otherwise.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should be applauded, not criticized, for a willingness to change course once added information became available despite the criticism it was certain to receive. SARS-CoV-2 was a “novel” virus when it appeared, meaning its behavior was entirely new and preventive measures were yet to be determined. Unlike the law, where precedent defines the future, in science, the past is a placeholder until added information is forthcoming.
Dean R. Wasserman, Plymouth, Mass.