Global Affairs

Follow the science but don't lose track of politics

While scientists are indispensable in managing health crises, it is dangerous to consider them as the only relevant decision-makers

Laboratory employees at the pharmaceutical company Uniao Quimica, where the Sputnik V vaccine will be produced, in Brasilia, Brazil, on March 2, 2021. PHOTO: REUTERS
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"Follow the science!" Among all the arguments that convulsed nations around the world since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic more than a year ago, the claim that politicians should be guided in what they do solely by available scientific evidence has proved to be the strongest and most persuasive.

And for good reasons. For, how can a politician handle a medical crisis without asking the medics what needs to be done? And how can a government chart a nation's way out of a pandemic without consulting those who have spent a lifetime studying the ways viruses propagate, or the process by which epidemics develop, thrive and fade away?

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