Before he became the president of the University of Miami, Julio Frenk served as the founding director of the National Institute of Public Health in Mexico, spent seven years as the minister of health for the nation of Mexico, served as the dean of Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and as a professor of health sector management at The U's business school and as a professor of public health sciences at The U's medical school.
The man knows a thing or three about how to make decisions about public health, both on a micro and macro level.
And, for now, he's comfortable with allowing the Hurricanes to move forward with the 2020 football season.
While he's never had to navigate a pandemic with a virus as contagious as COVID-19 -- he called it "the toughest" due to how quickly knowledge of the disease changes -- Frenk has more experience grappling with risk and uncertainty in the realm of public health than anyone in higher learning.
In a tweet thread this morning, ESPN's David Hale explained Frenk's thinking.
That, I think, is an important point that many have overlooked. There's a false dichotomy where "locked down" is automatically assumed to be "safe" and "open" is treated as "dangerous" and where the most cautious approach is conflated with the most correct. Of course, that doesn't make the reverse true, either.
Just because Miami is moving forward with football on Aug. 14 doesn't mean they'll still do so on Sept. 14. But just because they're doing so on Aug. 14 doesn't mean they're making the wrong decision, either.