54

The experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the lockdown and state of health emergency, has drawn greater attention to questions that already existed but were underestimated. This short contribution deals with selected aspects of the pandemic and its public management. It will focus on questions relating to: the social value of professions usually considered low-skilled and low-paid; the discretionary, rather than rules-based, nature of public decision-making; and the relationship between science and politics, on major issues such as health measures and therapeutic processes.