There has been a lot of lost confidence in "experts" lately and for good reasons.

Striking notes similar to what I have posted.  From What are the harms of lockdown? by Sebastian Rushworth M.D. 

This argues that every solution always has differential costs and benefits to different stakeholders AND that different solutions have different mixes of beneficiaries and payers.

Whatever policy choice you are making, you need to do as good an estimate of the first, second and third order costs and benefits to the policy as possible and then tote them up on their respective sides of the ledger.  If you want to be especially sophisticated, you attach probabilities to each of the outcomes.  

This is the responsible approach.  The most frequent government approach on most policies is to look solely or mostly at the benefits and ignore the costs as much as possible.  This is unacceptable, especially in terms of health policy.  

From Belgium, we have Why politicians shouldn't hide behind science - not even in the corona era by Ruben Mersch.

Of course, Belgium is not the only country that is taking drastic measures to contain the virus. Almost every country in the world has closed certain sectors and enacted rules that determine how many people you can meet and whether or not you should wear a face mask. And, as in Belgium, it was often scientists who insisted on this. Most of the time politicians followed them. Too bad they had to take those measures, but they had no other choice: the virologists had to do it. 

But that raises a number of questions. If not too easily, do politicians turn the responsibility for their policy decisions to science? And: should scientists argue so openly for certain government measures? How should both relate to each other?

[snip]

In short: if we want to know what is true and what is not, it is best to consult scientists. But on the question of what is important and what is not, a scientist's judgment is worth as much as that of any other citizen. If we confuse both questions, science becomes political by other means. Scientists can then no longer claim that they are above political squabbles. They are in the thick of it, are no longer independent and thus undermine confidence in science. 

 There has been a lot of lost confidence in "experts" lately and for good reasons.