News Analysis Throughout the pandemic, health professionals and advisers have provided crucial service and advice to help manage the pandemic and minimize health risks. But there have also been criticism of elected politicians—who are expected to have a broader view and enact balanced policies to ensure overall societal well-being—acquiescing political decision-making to experts, who have narrower areas of focus. For example, for some experts dealing with hospital patients and over-capacity ICUs, a zero-sum approach of removing all social contact may make most sense. But for others seeing an increase in suicides, a worsening opioid crisis, and devastating financial ruin, a different approach that considers other criteria may be more appropriate. Marco Navarro-Genie, a political scientist and president of the Haultain Research Institute, says elected officials often give in to political calculations at the expense of setting the right policies, thinking they will lose political scores if they don’t listen to vocal …