UK Covid inquiry prescribes non-expert "critical thinkers"
Groupthink underpinned the flawed thinking behind the UK’s pandemic response, a succession of witnesses at the heart of government told the Covid-19 public inquiry.
The scientific advice on pandemic risks was overly weighted in favour of biomedical science, Lady Hallett said. What about the social and economic consequences? There was also no “guard against the risks of conventional wisdom becoming embedded in the institutions responsible for emergency preparedness and resilience”.
As a result, she called for non-expert "critical thinkers", skilled in "incisive challenge" to be included in "red teams", teams of devil's advocates, to puncture groupthink in future pandemic crisis planning committees.
TBH this sounds like a recipe for Dominic Cummings and his Torygraph edgelord pals to ensure that no coherent future pandemic response takes place. But that's the state of the UK for you I guess.
Gabriel Scally's take: https://www.bmj.com/content/386/bmj.q1865
Tags: uk uk-politics edgelords dominic-cummings pandemics planning future covid-19 devils-advocates critical-thinking red-teams groupthink experts expertise