Gov. Doug Ducey fires the scientists who warn he’s making a mistake by reopening Arizona

Opinion: Gov. Doug Ducey wants to reopen the state, and it seems he’d rather not let anything stand in his way.

For seven weeks, Gov. Doug Ducey has assured us that his decisions to reopen the state would be based not on politics or wishful thinking or even a wing and a prayer.

Data, he has said over and over again, would be in the drivers’ seat when it comes to steering Arizona through the coronavirus.

Now Ducey has tossed a significant piece of that data – public health models that predict we could be headed toward disaster – out the window.

Just hours after Ducey announced on Monday that he’s accelerating the reopening of parts of the state’s economy, state health officials told a team of university experts to stop working on models that project what will happen next.

The universities’ models had shown that the only way to avoid a dramatic spike in cases was to delay reopening the state until the end of May.

Instead, Ducey will rely on a federal model – one we aren’t allowed to even see.

Where we are? Or where we wish we were?

Dr. Cara Christ, director of the state Department of Health Services, downplayed the decision.

“We just asked them to take a pause for a little bit,” she told The Arizona Republic’s Rachel Leingang. “We are continuing to get updated FEMA models and we think that that is really representative of where we are.”

Representative of where we are, Dr. Christ? Or where a certain governor would like us to be?

Just a week ago, Ducey extended his stay-at-home order until May 15, saying it was working and that available data didn’t support reopening the economy just yet.

“We’ve earned where we are today, and we are not going to undo this,” he said.

Five days later – with Republicans ready to revolt and a president itching to reopen the country – he began to undo this.

Ducey on Monday decreed that barbershops and hair salons could reopen on Friday and restaurants on May 11. The stay-at-home order is expected to end next week.

Ducey’s decision to end the quarantine next week made sense – to me, at least.  At some point, you have to begin resuscitating the economy and considering the harm to people as a result of remaining closed. The goal in issuing the March 30 stay-at-home order was never to remain closeted until the virus had passed. It was to “flatten the curve”, to slow the spread of the virus to prevent hospitals from being overrun.

Christ said last week that goal had been met.

So Ducey is turning on the “green light”, citing a sudden “downward trajectory” on metrics tracking the spread of the virus.

GOP or scientists: Guess which side lost?

There is, however, a rather significant chance of rain on his parade.

The universities’ model – an Arizona-specific model created by 23 researchers from Arizona State University and the University of Arizona – has projected that the only way to avoid a dramatic increase in coronavirus cases is to wait to reopen at the end of May. 

“I can say, scientifically, no, it’s not safe to reopen unless you’re planning on, you know, shutting down again after a couple of weeks,” Tim Lant, a mathematical epidemiologist at ASU, told The Republic on April 22.

Shortly after Ducey’s Monday announcement that he’s reopening parts of the economy, DHS notified Lant and his team that their services are no longer needed.

And not only that, but they’ll be cut off from access to state data they need to continue their modeling.

Better, apparently, not to know the dangers that may lie ahead.

One would think the governor would want at least know what the university models show as he moves forward in the coming days and weeks, to at least factor their predictions into his decision making. But no.

“We realize that you have been, and continue to be working very hard on this effort, so we wanted to let you know as soon as possible so that you won’t expend further time and effort needlessly,” S. Robert Bailey, DHS bureau chief of public health statistics, wrote in an email to the modeling team.

The email said the request came at the director of DHS’s senior leadership.

Which came at the request of … the governor?

Ducey’s an ambitious guy and he’s in a spot as he steers the state forward through the greatest threat to public health in a century. I don’t envy him. He’s got to consider both the threat in opening up the state and the threat in remaining closed.

He’s got a president up for re-election who desperately wants to reopen the country, a party that is leaning on him to reopen the state and a team of university scientists who are cautioning him to go slow.

Guess which one landed in the ditch this week?