Who could possibly have predicted this?

/

Fooled ya!

Former NIH director Francis Collins looks back, and … oops!

As a guy living inside the Beltway, feeling the sense of crisis, trying to decide what to do in some situation room in the White House with people who had data that was incomplete … we weren't really considering the consequences in communities that were not New York City or some other big city ...

If you're a public health person, and you're trying to make a decision, you have this very narrow view of what the right decision is, and that is something that will save a life. Doesn't matter what else happens, so you attach infinite value to stopping the disease and saving a life. You attach zero value to whether this actually totally disrupts people's lives, ruins the economy, and has many kids kept out of school in a way that they never might quite recover from. Collateral damage.

The full tape is over an hour long – I sampled it, and it’s interesting.