Epidemiologists can speak expertly to risks: “if you do X, then Y is likely to occur.”

But when they speak instead to whether we *should* do X, how Y should be morally balanced against Z, what is “responsible”, etc—they’re no longer speaking as experts.

They have every right to cross over from their expertise to general policy debates.

But when they do so, they are speaking as one lay voice among any.

We need to stop cloaking the moral preferences of public health figures in the guise of science. Following the moral judgments of public health figures is not following the science.