"The speculation game doesn't serve the public in any particular way. When it gets to handicapping what's going to happen next, get a cable-news gig. We've conveyed that down to all the doctors." Unnamed senior administration official, as quoted by Yasmeen Abutaleb, Josh Dawsy, and Laurie McGinley of the Washington Post (July 11, 2020)
It's a shame for the White House that the doctors haven't signed NDAs. And neither has something called probability.
Many ridiculous, asinine comments have come from the Trump administration during this pandemic. Peter Navarro said that he was "a social scientist" when asked about his infectious disease expertise. We've had soliloquies on hydroxychloroquine, bleach, and warm summer evenings, all ostensibly solving the issue. We've been gifted with the revelation that if no testing were done, there would be "very few" cases. Utterly brain dead stuff aimed at some unidentified population of zombies. Nothing, however, has cut to the chase of what is wrong with the Trump administration more than the quote above.
What's shocking to me is that the unnamed senior administration official felt comfortable saying this. It's one of those "thinking out loud" moments actually stated to witnesses. Basically, some hubris-drenched, irresponsible non-expert decided it's a stellar idea to impose a kind of non disclosure agreement on experts.
Substitute the word "probability" for "speculation game," and you'll begin to understand my problem. American families have gotten dead wrong information from the Trump administration for five months now. Families have been forced to plan their behaviors, their economic well being, and their very lives on blatantly incorrect, overly optimistic administration statements.
Instead of allowing credentialed experts, the best of the best, to directly tell the public what they think will happen, this senior administration official thinks nothing is wrong with trying to put a lid on what health professionals tell the public about the future. And he says it out loud.
The speculation game, also known as probability, indeed serves the public in very particular ways, namely it helps them plan their lives based on what experts think is likely to happen. This attempt to restrict projections and predictions from reaching the public is actually worse than the science-distorting public relations of the early Soviet Union. It's worse because much more is currently at stake.
The Trump White House is attempting to censor probability. What's truly galling is that they see nothing wrong with their attempt.
Bob Dietz
July 13, 2020
