Did Pritzker's Pandemic Science Preaching Erode Public Trust?

CHICAGO — If you have grown weary listening to the conflicting messages about the science guiding Gov. J.B. Pritzker's coronavirus response at his daily news performances, it might not be your fault, according to science.

A recent Cornell University study found that politicians who pontificate in deterministic terms about the pandemic science that guides them risk eroding the public's trust in their policies and, worse, in science itself.

Dr. Sarah Kreps and Dr. Doug Kriner surveyed more than 6,000 people to shed light on how political messaging about scientific research guiding government responses to the pandemic affects the public's trust in science and science-based public policy.

The study findings, published in the journal Science Advances, suggested that when politicians downplayed the scientific uncertainty of pandemic modeling, it appeared to create a short-term spike in support for pandemic policies.

But when scientific predictions don't exactly jibe with reality, which they almost never do, the Cornell study showed the potential consequences — the erosion of the public trust.

"No model is right," Kriner told me. "As the old saying goes, some models are just more useful than others. If we talk about it in these deterministic ways, when they will almost always not end up matching reality perfectly, there can be a downside."

The study found: "Communicating the science in ways that are more categorical, sidestepping uncertainty, and weaving in fatalistic interpretations of the data are effective at building support at least in the short term. However, if projections prove incorrect, then arguments emphasizing reversals in projections can temper these gains and, potentially, even decrease support for science-based policymaking."

From the pandemic's start, Pritzker has consistently downplayed the omnipresent uncertainty of scientific research that guides him. His administration still keeps coronavirus predictive modeling that determines pandemic policy a state secret. And when faced with a Greek chorus of skeptics, the governor warned of the dangers of continued disobedience, stoking fear of the certain catastrophic consequences as the coronavirus crisis intensifies.

"What will it take to make this real for you?" Pritzker said last month in an attack on folks backing open rebellions against his coronavirus edicts.

"Do we have to get to a positivity rate of 50 percent like we're seeing in Iowa? Fifty percent. Are you waiting for health care workers to get sick to a point where you don't have staff in the local hospital to cover the next shift? What about if the hospitals get so overrun that your sick and your dying have nowhere left to turn?"

It's the kind of coronavirus messaging the Cornell study suggests politicians might want to avoid.

"I'm sensitive to what politicians do. They're using our best guess right now in trying to get people to take urgent action to try and save lives," Kriner said. "But I think there is some danger when [scientific] guidance changes, and it always changes."

As Illinoisans continue to struggle under the devastating economic shutdowns enacted in an attempt to slow the spread of spiking COVID-19 cases, it's become increasingly clear that Pritzker's reliance on "not scientific" coronavirus metrics that trigger the state's tiered pandemic mitigation restrictions have created a credibility crisis that the governor has struggled to overcome.

On Monday, for instance, Pritzker said the current statewide social distance restrictions — bans on indoor dining, high school sports and a de facto stay-home order — will remain in place even if regional coronavirus metrics dip below the statistical markers that his administration set for triggering industry-specific shutdowns.

"No region will be downgraded from our current Tier 3 mitigations for the next few weeks, even if they might be on track to meet those metrics. We are still very much in a precarious place, and we've got to take the time to evaluate any Thanksgiving effects before we make any premature adjustments," Pritzker said.

The governor said he's taking the commonsense advice of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country's leading infectious disease expert, who told governors Monday that now isn't the time to roll back social distance restrictions.

But for a lot of people skeptical of the governor's metrics triggering social distance restrictions, setting aside the statistical standards dealt a critical blow to the credibility of his so-called "Restore Illinois" mitigation plan.

Months ago, University of Chicago professor, Dr. Sarah Cobey — a world-renowned epidemiologist advising Pritzker's administration — warned this day would come.

She predicted to the Belleville News Democrat that publicly relying on "not scientifically founded" coronavirus metrics would lead to the Pritzker administration losing "scientific accuracy and probably credibility in the long run."

And here we are — facing what some predict could become a surge within a surge of coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths — led by a governor who has abandoned the supposedly scientific statistical benchmarks that served as a basis for his pandemic policy.

"Effectively, there's no credibility in Pritzker's message anymore. He could stand up every day and recommend things that are 1,000 percent right, and nobody will listen to him because he's lost credibility with the citizens he governs," state Rep. Blaine Wilhour said.

"He lost it by not being transparent. People can see his Draconian mitigation policies have had horrible effects on people's lives and livelihoods, and they're not working to slow the virus. We've got all these mitigation efforts, and the numbers continue to rise while states with fewer restrictions and more targeted responses are in a better spot. He lost credibility because there seems to be more political science than actual science in his policies. More people are starting to see right through it."

Wilhour, a downstate Republican, might be right, according to science.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series, "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docu-series on CNN, and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary, "16 Shots."

More from Mark Konkol:

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