Final Word from Tuesday, August 25, 2020

Joe Biden declared over the weekend that if the scientists said to shut down the U.S. economy, he would shut it down. He didn't say which scientists he would listen to. A group of 500 of them is already calling for another lockdown. "Shut it down, start over, do it right," they wrote in an open letter to Donald Trump and other leaders. The problem, according to Andrej Babiš, is that every epidemiologist has a different opinion. He blamed last week's on-again, off-again decision on face masks in schools and stores on epidemiologist Rastislav Maďar, whom we labeled the "face of Czech repression." Yet Maďar denied that he was the one who wanted to require masks in schools. Which of the two rich Slovaks should we believe? Babiš, whose interest is in winning elections, or Maďar, whose interest is what exactly? His Kč 200,000 Breitling helps explain how he could afford to advise the government for free, but it also raises questions about his conflicts of interest. If scientists have the power to bring about a total economic shutdown, we should probably know as much about them as we do about the virus itself. [ Czech Republic watch wristwatch United States of America Democratic candidate presidential elections ]