With one foot on the stilt of a scientist (director of public health) and the other on that of a politician (Deputy Minister of Health), Horacio Arruda embodied, by himself, the linking of science to politics. Unfortunately, he no longer succeeded in linking, in a reasoned speech, the data of public health and science to the political decisions taken by the Legault government.
I advance that Mr. Arruda was appointed scapegoat on the recommendation of the firm McKinsey (which advises the Legault government on pandemic management) and made to resign to provide a smokescreen for political decisions taken “by intuition” .
His replacement risks more easily endorsing the purely political decisions of the Legault government.
I fear this represents a setback for science-based political decision-making. This does not bode well for the response to the climate emergency, which is on the back burner and is much more serious than the current COVID-19 pandemic.
I am of the opinion that Public Health and its management must be free from any political influence so that the scientific opinions they produce are communicated to the general public and that politicians make and justify their decisions based on science, in a concern for objectivity and transparency for the common good, rather than behind closed doors on the advice of a private management firm.
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