Experts call for honest assessment on U.S. pandemic response: WSJ

A pedestrian walks past a memorial installation for those who died of COVID-19 outside Green-Wood Cemetery in New York, the United States, on June 14, 2021. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

American experts called for an all-round honest evaluation on the country's pandemic response as people are losing their trust in either science or government's handling on the COVID-19 crisis, according to an opinion article from Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Sunday.

Two experts, Martin Kulldorff, who is a biostatistician and epidemiologist, also a professor at Harvard Medical School and Jay Bhattacharya, a physician and economist, and a professor at Stanford Medical School shared their views on WSJ that the country needs a thorough review, free from conflicts of interest that may help people to rebuild their faith on experts.

According to the article, the senate and private foundations are mulling over setting up commissions to examine issues such as the virus origins, the early response to the epidemic and equity issues.

Two experts suggested there are four major sections of the country's pandemic response that must be included in the evaluation: public health measures, treatment of COVID-19 patients, vaccine development and applications, and the discourse and censorship of scientific debates.

They emphasized that the commission in charge of the evaluation shouldn't get involved with the origin of the virus, which could be distracting from evaluation and better left to other investigative bodies.

The commission can't be "dominated by virologists, immunologists and epidemiologists," said the experts. They also encouraged to include people with expertise in oncology, cardiovascular disease, geriatric and pediatric medicine, psychology, psychiatry, education and much else.

They also advised to include a wider group of people to join the commission, such as patients and public members who were affected like artists and business owners. Also members who "have expressed diverse views, including those who advocated against lockdowns and who championed different treatments and vaccine recommendations" must be included, said the article.

Anyone who are paid by government or pharmaceutical companies to be currently involved in the pandemic response are strongly advised to be excluded. People who have worked with tech companies on censoring are also excluded, according to the article.

Considering 600,000 death because of COVID-19 in the U.S. and on-and-off lockdowns, the collateral damages of the broken trust are not limited to the fields including epidemiology, virology and public health, but also scientists such as oncologists, physicists, computer scientists, environmental engineers and even economists, according to the experts.