The Covid-19 pandemic was a disaster. Over a million Americans died—many in isolation in hospitals and nursing homes, far from their friends and family—and millions more became seriously sick, lost their jobs, or felt the effects of widespread economic and social disruption. Students suffered irreversible learning losses, with many exiting the public-school system altogether. Patients delayed or were denied health care unrelated to Covid-19, from cancer treatment to routine vaccination. Mental-health issues and domestic abuse spiked.

Federal, state, and local authorities frequently made confusing or contradictory policy decisions, leaving Americans bewildered and frustrated. In many places, churches and schools shuttered while bars and liquor stores remained open. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was among the most prominent federal institutions at the center of this maelstrom. One of the agency’s key functions during the pandemic—and a source of much controversy—was to provide public-health guidance: advice to institutions and individuals about how to behave in response to the threat of a novel coronavirus.

CDC guidance itself isn’t new—the agency has been issuing public-health guidelines and warnings for years—but it took on a new and outsized role during the pandemic. Americans learned the hard way that the CDC is not just a public-health agency; it is part of the administrative state, embedded in a powerful federal bureaucracy with considerable influence over economic and social life. Yet the CDC’s policy guidance is peculiar, neither strictly regulatory nor simply advisory. And the processes and evidence the CDC uses to make such consequential decisions are, compared with those of other administrative agencies, unusually opaque.

Recent survey data from the American Enterprise Institute’s Survey Center on American Life show a dramatic decline in public trust in scientific and medical expertise from before the pandemic to today. It may take years for the public-health community—and the CDC, in particular—to recover. As a first step toward regaining its legitimacy, the CDC should consider reforming its public-health guidance—not only to help it make better decisions, but also to increase the transparency and accountability of its decision-making process.

Read the entire article in National Review.