(2020-12-23) Why I'm Losing Trust In The Institutions

Yascha Mounk: Why I'm Losing Trust in the Institutions. Who should be first in line to get the vaccine against Covid-19?

There are also some bedrock principles on which virtually all moral philosophers have long agreed. The first is that we should avoid “leveling down” everyone’s quality of life for the purpose of achieving equality. It is unjust when some people have plenty of food while others are starving. But alleviating that inequality by making sure that an even greater number of people starve is clearly wrong. The second is that we should not use ascriptive characteristics like race or ethnicity to allocate medical resources. To save one patient rather than another based on the color of their skin rightly strikes most philosophers—and most Americans—as barbaric. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have just thrown both of these principles overboard in the name of social justice.

The attack on philosophically liberal principles has by now migrated from leafy college campuses to the most important and powerful organizations in the country. And, in part as a result, it is getting harder and harder to trust institutions from the CDC to the New York Times.

On November 23rd, Kathleen Dooling, a public health official at the CDC, gave a presentation... In a stark departure from the course of action adopted in virtually every other developed democracy, Dooling recommended that 87 million essential workers—a very broad category including bankers and movie crews as well as teachers or supermarket cashiers—should get the vaccine before older Americans, even though the elderly are much more likely to die from the disease. The committee unanimously accepted the recommendations.

as Kathleen Dooling wrote in one of the most jaw-dropping sentences I have ever seen in a document written by a public official, differences in expected consequences that could amount to thousands of additional deaths are “minimal.”

This allowed Dooling to focus on “ethical” principles in selecting the best course of action. Highlighting the most important consideration in red, Dooling emphasized that “racial and ethnic minority groups are underrepresented among adults > 65.” In other words, America’s elderly are too white to be considered a top priority for the distribution of the vaccine against Covid. It is on this basis that ACIP awarded three times as many points to prioritizing the more racially diverse group of essential workers, making the crucial difference in the overall determination. Astonishingly, the higher overall death toll that would have resulted from this course of action does not feature as an ethical reason to prioritize older Americans.

It gets even more shocking. The difference in the percentage of white people across age groups is comparatively small

Giving the vaccine to African-American essential workers before elderly African-Americans would likely raise the overall death toll of African-Americans even if a somewhat greater number of African-Americans were to receive the vaccine as a result.

In other words, the CDC was effectively about to recommend that a greater number of African-Americans die so that the share of African-Americans who receive the vaccine is slightly higher. In blatant violation of the “leveling down objection,” prioritizing essential workers in the name of equality would likely kill more people in all relevant demographic groups.

As criticism of the recommendations mounted, epidemiologists mostly circled the wagon

But thankfully, the pressure was too strong to ignore

ACIP changed course

this is an undoubted improvement over the initial guidance. But, for two reasons, it too probably sacrifices American lives on the altar of social justice.

Just how many additional deaths will result from the ongoing refusal to prioritize those who are at the highest risk of dying? The CDC won’t tell us.

The updated guidance, which was adopted with a 11-1 majority on December 20th, no longer includes an estimate of how many more people are likely to die if states follow its recommendation.

Over the past years, stories of campus craziness have frequently made the national news.

Activists on campus have always been a little silly,” they’d say. “This won't affect the real world.”

It is now clear that this was a serious misjudgment

By disposition, I trust the functioning of establishment institutions and the decent intentions of my compatriots. In a country with rapidly falling social trust and growing political dysfunction, I try to hold on to my belief that some key organizations are doing their best. Until a few years ago, it was obvious to me that I can trust what is written in the newspaper or what I am told by public health authorities.

I no longer trust any institution in American life to such an extent that I am willing to rely on its account of the world without looking into important matters on my own

The reasons for this mistrust are perfectly encapsulated in the reports that mainstream newspapers published about the CDC’s recommendation. The write-up in the New York Times, for example, barely mentions the committee’s last-minute change of heart. A faithful reader of the newspaper of record would not even know that an important public body was, until it received massive criticism from the public, about to sacrifice thousands of American lives on the altar of a dangerous and deeply illiberal ideology.