I don’t agree with that as a way to run policy that affects real people living their lives.
Because scientific guidance already involves debate within the scientific community, just with people actually qualified to debate it.
It seems some people are taken aback by their exclusion, but no one is stopping you from becoming a virologist and partaking in the debate.
Who were you thinking would be left to debate those guidelines when the guidelines are based on the debate of experts?
Guidelines change because the experts are still free to debate them, where there is little room for debate is following the results of said debate.
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And what on earth are you asking me how the guidelines from virologists went for when you're the one arguing for leaving room for debate against them?
One would imagine you'd have some very clear pictures of missteps that can't be excused by the fact we were trying to fight an unknown virus killing people at an alarming rate if you're saying there's room for debating if we should follow their guidelines.
I mean go look at the evolution of discussion on COVID fomite transmission yourself.
In March we were getting studies showing long lived presence of COVID in some form on surfaces for weeks, but there was debate on if those were actually infectious amongst experts.
By April here's a virologist pointing out that the results showing weeks didn't mean it was infectious:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/coronavirusfrontlines/2020/04/0...
And for those who will not read the article but will try to respond based on the url... the conclusion was still supporting possible transmission, just for days instead if weeks. And it was still recommending aggressive disinfection:
> This suggests that risk of infection from virus on objects or surfaces in the environment can be minimized by diligent cleaning and disinfection practices.
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The very nature of the guidelines is including the fact no all experts are going to agree, which is the point of an organization like WHO.
There is little room for debate in following what their guidelines. It's very easy to come up with armchair opinion showing how misguided that is where they were wrong, but their recommendations are based on accounting for the fact we had a global pandemic to deal with.
