Public Health Experts Glaringly Absent from Public Health Roundtable

Yesterday, on September 24th, Governor DeSantis held a “Roundtable Discussion on Public Health.” His guests (who attended virtually) were:

• Michael Levitt, PhD, a biophysicist and professor of structural biology at Stanford University, who received the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for “the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems.”
• Jay Bhattacharya M.D. PhD, a Health Economist whose research interests are “Health economics and outcomes research.” He is a professor of Medicine at Stanford and a senior Fellow at Stanford’s Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR)
• Martin Kulldorff, PhD a biostatistician and professor at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston.

Glaringly absent were Dr. Scott Rivkees, Florida’s Surgeon General, anyone from Florida’s Department of Health or anyone representing the Centers For Disease Control. 

What the three invited “experts” had in common was they tended to agree with Governor DeSantis’ goal of reopening the economy, removing restrictions on business operations and fully reopening public schools and universities. During the 2 hour discussion, DeSantis asked them questions like:

• Do you agree, at this point, that lockdowns should be off the table?

• Is there any evidence that schools K-12 or 15 and under, have been vectors of spreading the disease throughout the community?

• Should 3rd graders be required to wear masks or should that be a parent’s decision?

The panelists also agreed that their opinions were generally in the minority of the scientific community. At one point, Dr. Levitt expressed  surprise to find there were other doctors who agreed with him. Together, they lamented that opinions like theirs had not been embraced by the rest of the medical community.

In the end, the panelists agreed with Governor DeSantis that lockdowns are “no longer an effective way to control the virus.” They emphasized that restricting people from going to work or school carries dangerous side effects in terms of social and economic despair and questioned the efficacy cloth masks, especially in school children.

At almost the exact same time, Dr. Anthony Fauci was repeating that even an effective COVID-19 vaccine won’t replace the need for other public health measures, such as wearing a mask, social distancing and washing hands, something that Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield testified to last week when he said ““The best defense we currently have against this virus are the important mitigation efforts of wearing a mask, washing your hands, social distancing and being careful about crowds.” Just last week, a report was published in Mathematica that demonstrated “precautions such as requiring masks can measurably reduce infection spread in schools.”

Bringing in a carefully assembled panel of experts to advance a specific agenda is something that public education advocates are all too familiar with. For decades, data points have been cherry picked to further a narrative. “Expert opinions” have been sought almost exclusively from organizations promoting privatization. Politically connected private foundations have been so deeply embedded that they were, at one time, given office space in the Governor’s office and literally wrote and controlled the passage of education legislation which financially benefited their corporate donors and advanced their privatization agenda.

We believe that developing quality solutions for public education’s problems require input from a broad range of opinions, including public educators, just like quality solutions to public health crises should demand input from public health officials. Public health officials were glaringly absent from the Governor’s “Public Health” Roundtable.

As I wrote this, in a press conference in St. Petersburg, DeSantis announced he was moving the entire State into Phase 3, eliminating any local restrictions on business operations and preempting local governments’ ability to assess fines on violators of local public health ordinances. What this means for public schools and mask requirements is yet to be seen. What is clear is that yesterday’s roundtable was clearly orchestrated to advance today’s agenda.

During the press conference, DeSantis referred to yesterday’s roundtable when discussing hospital capacity during Covid:

“I asked those experts… do you have any concern about hospital overrun… do you think it will overwhelm the medical system. They all said “No, No, and No.” 

Actually, Dr. Levitt had answered “I certainly would agree but I think that we’re in the minority.”

While we move into Phase 3, we remind Floridians that the overwhelming majority of public health experts, including Florida Department of Public Health continues to encourage:

• Stay home if you’re sick

• Cover coughs and sneezes

• Wash your hands

• Wear a face covering if social distancing isn’t possible.

• Get vaccinated against the flu as soon as possible. (Reducing illness and hospitalization from the flu helps keep everyone safer.)

Stay well, everyone.