Rebuilding public trust in science in times of pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has made the public health experts in universities worldwide more visible than ever before. How are the experts responding to the global crisis these days? How to regain public trust in science? Times Higher Education gathered some answers from some of the experts at the frontline of fighting COVID-19.
Like many of his counterparts, Gabriel Leung, dean of Hong Kong University’s Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, felt that science had risen to the challenge. “The extent and severity of this pandemic is unprecedented, but people have not been caught off-guard,” said Prof. Leung.
The mass protests that lasted for more than six months in Hong Kong since last June, have lowered the citizens’ trust in the city’s public officials. As a result, they have become more inclined to seek advice from academics. But this did not make Prof. Leung see himself taking the role of a proxy for the work of the public officials. “I don’t see myself doing someone else’s job – I am just doing my job as a public health professor who can provide an independent voice who talks about science and the evidence,” he said.
