[Protect the experts' work.] / Proteggere il lavoro degli esperti.

ABSTRACT

During the most worrying months of the Covid-19 pandemic, Italy's Regions and Autonomous Provinces were classified into four areas distinguished by different colours - red, orange, yellow and white - corresponding to three risk scenarios, thus leading to restrictive measures of varying degrees. The Public Prosecutor's Office of the Court of Bergamo - one of the cities hardest hit by the health emergency - has closed an initial investigation claiming that the failure to establish the red zone caused the epidemic to spread to a valley in Lombardy with a significant increase in avoidable mortality if the restrictive measures had been put in place in time. The accusation is an opportunity to consider the role of experts and the risks of error in the decision-making process. The choices made during the pandemic were often made under conditions of uncertainty health policies need experts to take responsibility for making complex, risky decisions; but complex, risky decisions are also those for which it is more likely, in retrospect, to turn out that on some aspect a mistake was made, or the best choice was not made. By pushing technicians away from risky assessments, only the unskilled will be left to make those assessments.