In a March 3 talk at Washington University, St Louis, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky was asked what could have been improved in her pandemic response. She admitted the government was overconfident in vaccines and expressed as scientific fact things that were gray areas. We applaud Walensky for her honesty and for admitting mistakes. But how many health officials – like Scott Atlas of Stanford – were smeared and silenced for disputing the government’s “official black and white (and wrong!) science.”

This is what she said:

I have frequently said we’re going to lead with the science. Science is going to be the foundation of everything we do. That is entirely true. I think public heard that as science is foolproof, science is black and white. Science is immediate and we get the answer. And then we make the decisions based on the answer.

And the truth is science is gray. And science is not always immediate. And sometimes it takes months, years to actually find out the answer.