As the BBC has reported today:
Thousands of scientists and health experts have joined a global movement warning of "grave concerns" about Covid-19 lockdown policies.
Nearly 6,000 experts, including dozens from the UK, say the approach is having a devastating impact on physical and mental health as well as society.
They are calling for protection to be focused on the vulnerable, while healthy people get on with their lives.
In other words, they want the young to do what they want; and the economy to reopen along with all schools and universities, without constraint, whilst the more elderly (the 60 plus) are effectively locked down and cut off from the rest of society for as long as Covid 19 lasts for their supposed self-protection.
The so-called Great Barrington Declaration itself says:
As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection.
Coming from both the left and right, and around the world, we have devoted our careers to protecting people. Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health — leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden. Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice.
It all seems such reasonable stuff. But then it adds this:
As immunity builds in the population, the risk of infection to all — including the vulnerable — falls. We know that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity — i.e. the point at which the rate of new infections is stable — and that this can be assisted by (but is not dependent upon) a vaccine. Our goal should therefore be to minimize mortality and social harm until we reach herd immunity.
The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. We call this Focused Protection.
But that's when the alarm bells ring.
First, I am reliably informed there is no such term as ‘herd immunity' in public health medicine. The term only exists in veterinary medicine. So this is not a medical, epidemiological or public health declaration in that case.
Second, even if the term did exist, there is no evidence as yet that ‘herd immunity' could be created for Covid-19. This is not a disease to which lasting immunity is created by having it once unlike, for example, mumps. Covid 19 seems like flu and the cold in this regard (which is unsurprising as the common cold is also a Covid), and herd immunity does not exist for either of them. In which case the claims made are based on an entirely false premise.
Third, no policy of this sort has ever been used in society. I'd offer this clip of Prof Trisha Greenhalgh as evidence:
As Prof Greenhalgh points out, this is in fact not science at all.
To understand this it's important to note that this so-called Great Barrington Declaration was signed at the Great Barrington Headquarters of the American Institute for Economic Research, of which Wikipedia says (and on this occasion, I think quite reliably):
The American Institute for Economic Research (AIER)[2] is a 501(c)(3) economic research institute located in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. The institute aims to promote individual sovereignty, limited government, and "a society based on property rights and open markets."[3] It was founded in 1933 by Edward C. Harwood, an economist and investment advisor, with the intention of protecting individual rights.[4]
The current president of the institute is Edward Stringham, an Austrian School economist and a professor of economics at Trinity College in Connecticut.[5]
This is not, then, epidemiology at all. Nor is it science. It is far-right economics. And the logic that underpins it is that of that branch of economic thinking.
Over time I have formed the very firm opinion that many who adhere to that way of thinking are of the opinion that the elderly are simply a burden on society who do not add to economic production. If you look at how much the elderly do add to the production side of GDP this is, of course, a sustainable argument in a great many cases. It takes only a moment in that case to extend the argument and to argue that the elderly do, then, have no worth. And what this so-called epidemiological approach does is in that case provide is cover for what I think might best be called the cull of the elderly that many of this persuasion would, I think, like.
This cull - which they call ‘harvesting' (because that sounds so much nicer) - would achieve are four things. The first would be a reduced size of the state because of reduced pension payments. Second, there would also be a reduced size of the state because of reduced medical spending. And third, the logic is that taxes could Then be reduced as a result. And fourth, as a consequence, the income of the surviving younger people would increase. It's easy to see why the right wing like this so much.
But it's still best described, in my opinion, as a cull.
And, come to that, it's also a deliberate policy to oppress the civil rights of the elderly.
And all that is being done in the interests of supporting the free enterprise economy to operate without constraints because it is assumed that the elderly are pretty much outside it.
So let's stop the pretence that this has anything at all to do with health issues. This is the economics of neoliberalism running riot, and revealing in the process its utter indifference to the interests of anyone but those who can ‘add value' within that system.
As a result of which I add one final thought. If some can sign up to this what will they sign up to next? Remember, first they came for those they deemed to be the elderly..... You can fill in the blanks.
NOTE TO POTENTIAL COMMENTATORS: It's become pretty clear that a large number of comments are coming from right-wing sources, all of whom are obsessing on herd immunity, none of which discuss the issues raised in this post, and many of which are abusive. I am now getting bored by these as none now add value and as a result those offering them after 15.30 on 8 October can presume that they will be deleted.
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Herd immunity has been practiced for millenia for the common cold, and I still get the sniffles!
Living proof then that herd immunity hasn’t worked. If you’re still showing symptoms you can hardly claim to be immune. Additionally, the common cold is, luckily for you and your immunity, not a very deadly disease.
Can I just check what you’re saying here:
– the 3 authors (professors from Oxford, Harvard & Stanford) are proposing to cull the elderly in support of their far right economic view. Moreover the thousands of medical professionals who have also signed in support are either of the same view or have been taken in?
I am thinking these people have been taken in
That’s my opinion
“Far-right economics” or, as it was known until recently, “economics”.
The author portrays the normal as radical, which tells us who the real radical is. And “herd immunity” is a term that’s been in public use for years.
With respect, those claims are not true
I wish you wouldn’t comment when you don’t have expertise. Of course “herd immunity” is a term used in (human) immunology. See e.g. http://vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/vk/herd-immunity or take look at the literature, e.g. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=%22herd+immunity%22&btnG=
And as I have noted, that is disputed
But it’s provided a good herring – and so been useful
I’d that’s all that can be objected to I am happy
“Far-Right” – hystrionics, and absurd at that.
You’ve also deliberately misrepresented the document and position of the authors.
There is no demand on anyone, vulnerable or otherwise, to be isolated indoors by these proposals. ‘Cull’ is tabloid stuff.
But sporadic and increasing isolations lockdowns – for the vulnerable along with everyone else – are what is called for the alternative prevailing policies. For a period of years (Does your sympathy extend to the restrictions they’ll endure in this scenario ?)
Certain financial players are certainly benefitting, though, from these current policies.
With respect, your claims are simply nit backed up by 5his so called declaration
It says what I suggest it says
And I am far from alone in thinking so
The far right links are also being widely noted now
Sir, you may wish to have a chat with the person who (un)reliably informed you that “herd immunity” is not a phrase used in human public health spheres. I linked one article from a paediatric hospital from 2017, and linked below is an article from 1983.
Both regard measles, because that’s a common malady where discussion about how herd immunity has broken down due to anti-vaccine fear mongering.
https://academic.oup.com/cid/article-abstract/5/3/463/395941
Anyway, you might consider excising that portion of your post because it just makes you (and your reliable informant) look a bit silly.
Er, no it doesn’t
Odd exceptions do not prove anything
It is a veterinary medicine concept
And it works in herds where vaccines are available and the illness basically non recurrent
So the assumptions relating to its use don’t even apply
“Odd exceptions do not prove anything”
You no longer seem to be responding in anything one would say is in good faith.
What I provided were not “odd exceptions”. But rather, hundreds of thousands of instances from the 1960 through the 2010s where researchers described human “herd immunity”.
You can stick your head in the sand, if you wish (and I’m sure you will not have the guts to post this comment), but you’re weirdly and wildly wrong when you argue that human public health does not describe “herd immunity” as a human thing. Your argument that it is relegated solely to veterinarian health is just plainly and stupidly wrong, as shown by the weight of all evidence.
Why do you persist in such incredibly incorrectness?
One wonders why.
I have made my point
So have you
We disagree
People are *actually* arguing that ‘herd immunity’ is fine because it has been mentioned in regard to human infectious control?
?
Richard is correct – if is a veterinary term, for a process that involves ‘acceptable losses’ of a percentage of the herd.
That means, as applied to people, anyone advocating ‘herd immunity’ wants a percentage of the population to die.
Die. Individuals will die. Death is natural, and happens to us all – but to speed up the process and actually introduce policies, or even advocate them, is – unlawful, a moral outrage, cold-blooded.
Anyone advocating for ‘herd immunity’ is basically stating they want people to die.
Herd immunity necessarily implies stating a threshold of acceptable risk, or death in this case
They have not
Spot on Richard. I have been involved with a series of discussion notes – in correspondence with some of the Independent Sage group.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T67KAGmAguI5yCyA6HEtgEh76jxgBGV-/view?usp=sharing
This is straight ideology posing as science – (some of the leaders are on record opposing a public health service) they havent been publishing research on, or modelling these ideas to the rest of the scientific community.
S Korea, China, Taiwan, Japan, New Zealand..demonstrate how to suppress the virus without culling older people.
Thanks
Another thing that is a bit off is:
“Covid 19 seems like flu and the cold in this regard (which is unsurprising as the common cold is also a Covid), and herd immunity does not exist for either of them.”
First, while there are some coronaviruses which cause the common cold (Covid is not a virus, it’s what we call the disease state caused by this particular coronavirus), you should not that there are only a few coronaviruses which cause common cold. There are some 200 viruses in total. Most are rhinoviruses.
We do actually develop immunity to common cold viruses. The problem is that there are some 200 of these viruses, so catching virus#1 and gaining immunity to it doesn’t help much when, next year or 6 months later, we run into virus#5 or #55 or #155.
Which, if you read what I said, is an expanded form of my summary
” if you read what I said, is an expanded form of my summary”
No, not even close. You said we don’t develop immunity to cold viruses. All the science says that we do. You are 100% wrong about this.
You have obviously been shown to be 100% wrong in your assertion that “herd immunity” is not used in human public health spheres, too.
But you don’t seem to care about that.
You do seem to have some kind of agenda here that cares nothing about public health, though. What’s up with that?
I am precisely interested in public health
And I have noted why herd immunity is not an appropriate term to use
But because you’re obviously dedicated to your viewpoint let me offer another reason why real public health physicians avoid the term: they don’t view humans as herds, to be managed as animals are
Implicit in the term is an elitist view of society that is contrary to the whole idea of public health, which recognises our universal commonality
Herd immunity does not work too well for flu because that virus mutates fairly quickly. But not so quick that you don’t get a good six months protection (else flu jabs wouldn’t work). But I’m not saying that necessarily tips the balance in favour of Barrington. Difficult call, this one.
Herd immunity only works with vaccines and non-recurrent illnesses
And mainly in cattle
Smallpox excepted
Spurious claims.
Illogical reasoning.
Essentially drivel clearly intended to be propaganda.
NEXT.
Who are you referring to?
As I understand it, what we call a common cold – a mild, short-lived, upper respiratory tract infection (coughs, sneezes, running nose, sore throat, headache, etc.) – can be caused by a coronavirus, but it isn’t most of the time. It is estimated that 200 different viruses are responsible for what we call a “cold”: most colds are caused by a rhinovirus, and some by an influenza virus, or a variety of other viruses. Relatively infrequently (perhaps one in six) it is a coronavirus. (The Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 – the one that causes Coronavirus disease 2019 aka COVID-19 – is much nastier even than influenza, let alone a common cold.)
It has been suggested that antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus might last in the body for a few months and then disappear, so there may be no such thing as “immunity” anyway, let alone “herd immunity” (which it has to be said, is a term used in the medical literature – e.g. https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/52/7/911/299077 from 2011: “A common implication of the term is that the risk of infection among susceptible individuals in a population is reduced by the presence and proximity of immune individuals.” – and that is not a veterinary journal). There are several documented cases now of a person suffering COVID-19, recovering, and then catching a different strain some time later. And there is also no guarantee that an effective vaccine will be found any time soon or at all. After nearly 40 years of research, there is no AIDS vaccine yet. There is no cold vaccine. Flu vaccines are not entirely effective because the darn things keep changing.
What this policy advocates is essentially locking up the old and vulnerable for as long as possible (what about their mental and physical health?) and then letting everyone catch this virus. Many – perhaps 1% – will die – mostly in older age groups but also many vulnerable people in younger age groups, because it won’t be possible to protect them all forever. More – perhaps 2% or more – will suffer “long COVID” – substantial longer term health impacts – fatigue, pain, problems with heart, lungs, kidneys, etc. And then accepting that exposing tens of millions of people to preventable health problems – up to and including death – is worth it, to sustain the prosperity of others. Essentially, that the old and the sick are not worth saving, and we should just let them suffer and die. That is callous and inhumane.
it is a callous and inhumane proposal, even if it is made by several thousand medical professionals, and several professors (including an Oxford professor of theoretical epidemiology with a background in zoology and malaria research, with little to no experience or expertise in this particular area, whose theoretical predictions have already been shown to be grossly wrong).
So what would you propose? Lock down the whole world till Covid is over? What happens, much like every other flu and corona virus we know of, it never actually goes away?
Or should we protect the more vulnerable in society whilst letting those not at threat get on with their lives – noting that economic well-being is also linked to mortality rates, and also has a massive impact on mental health.
Covid in the UK is currently killing less than 2 people per 100,000. Suicide is killing 12 per 100,000. Do you not think that by shutting down the economy and costing people their businesses and jobs that you are likely to see mental health suffer and suicide rates rise?
But in your world, it is much more important to shut everything down to protect people like yourself – who are also more likely to be retired, own homes, have savings and pensions and therefore going to suffer much less economically from a lockdown. How caring of you – you’d rather see other people suffer.
In your world, your own self interest takes over, twinned with an insatiable urge to label everything you disagree with, however sensible, as a right wing neo-liberal conspiracy. It actually makes me sick.
It seems to me that what I am saying is consistent with (and of course informed by) the vast majority of epidemiologists, but clearly not all, with the exceptions mainly (and unsurprisingly) the statistical modellers, and almost all public health physicians and a great many other medics.
So why do you think you know better?
But of course this is not solely a public health matter. It is also an economic matter and also (in terms of the way we live our lives) a social/cultural matter too.
Epidemiologists should not and do not have a monopoly of policy prescriptions when it comes to dealing with coronavirus, although their voice should of course inform debate.
I am willing to believe that the majority of epidemiologists support lockdowns. But of course many of them have well-paid and secure jobs in academia or public health bodies which all but insulate them from any economic impact of the measures they propose.
We do not really know whether this majority is actually a “vast” majority of epidemiologists as you claim. I would note that the epidemiologists do seem to be more split over policy than, say, climate scientists, where the science is to all intents and purposes settled. That surely is significant and may suggest that we should be giving more weight to economic, social and cultural matters.
And you didn’t respond to Helen’s question. Do we lock down forever if a vaccine never arrives? That surely reduces living to the mere biological state of being alive. There are many people – including no doubt many elderly people – who would argue that this is a life barely worth living.
I don’t answer the question because at present there are many promises of vaccines
If those promises are true then the question was not, as yet, worth addressing so I dismissed it
More likely, you dismissed it because it’s awkward for you to answer.
The average time it takes for a vaccine to be developed is 8 years. The quickest that one has ever been developed is 4 years (mumps). SARS is a species of coronavirus which first came about in 2003. 17 years, we still have no vaccine for it.
There are – and can be – no “promises” when it comes to vaccines, and you are naive to think otherwise.
I suggested we may nit git a vaccine
Equally, we are told by many companies that they think we will
I am hedging my bets
But if we don’t, locking up 30% of the population is not a solution
“Herd immunity” was first used in relation to cattle in an outbreak of “contagious abortion” in the USA, according to an article on the history of the term published in The Lancet: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31924-3/fulltext#seccestitle20aa The authors discuss how the term entered “the language of public health” and warn that attempting to achieve herd immunity via infection of the population (i.e. without a vaccine) would likely fail at the cost of a great many lives.
Another option would be for governments to invest heavily in health services and other protective/mitigating strategies to cope with infections and the negative effects of lockdowns, social distancing and other protective measures that have serious downsides.
Another Lancet article castigates the UK Govt’s handling and argues for investment in the NHS to protect the citizens. One could say such investment is a “sacred duty.” https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32035-3/fulltext
I have said before that this will have negative effects on mental health, why have face to face appointments for mental health been stopped?
It will be a somber task to analyse suicide deaths in the next five years.
Same goes for other major illnesses.
There does need to be a strategy, especially one that looks into what could happen if an effective vaccine is never found.
Hospitality will be all but finished, not just big corporate hotels and brewers, but family run B&B’s, local micropubs etc…
Festivals, live music, nightclubs?
How will the still active elderly go on without things like coffee mornings, bridge club etc…
What about their mental health?
What country, if any, has a strategy that won’t destroy the economy and quality of life for survivors.
Human beings are historically social and any restrictions will eventually be ignored so spread will continue no matter what.
I have noticed on my travels a change in mood and morale.
Things as they are cannot continue.
So you’d rather deaths?
I don’t think people will accept that
People won’t accept deaths that may be preventable, as I said above, let’s see peer reviewed analysis of the long term effects on mental health and suicide rates, missed terminal illness diagnosis, young people with no prospect of work as jobs in hospitality have all but disappeared.
All that will happen is a growing resentment, and it won’t be directed at guilty parties, easy targets like immigrants, people of colour etc… will suffer.
As I said above, the declining mental health has effected my good friends street more than Coronavirus ever will.
Jim Round, face to face mental health consultations can be made safe with efficient air management systems. Same with the other things you mention. There is a cost associated with the necessary ducts, fans and filters, but that cost is offset by the costs foregone of illness, death and stalled economy.
As someone who works in NHS mental health, I can tell you the opposite is happening. CCGs are keen to push what I’ve heard described as “digital by default”. The argument being that the savings incurred will help keep services afloat without the need for further staff cuts. There is no investment, and certainly not in buildings. A third of my team’s budget goes on ‘rent’ to NHSPS and any improvements would have to be paid for by us.
The attitude you speak of is indemic.
I note that the healthy years of life in Sweden are 4 years more than in the US even although their average incomes are the same.
Where in the US presidential election is the aspiration to close this gap ~ to increase healthy life.
I think a cull has already begun and it has spread to peoples minds, they don’t realise how much their country could do for them and how little they have come to expect and accept.
So, anyone who has a different option is evil.
I like some of your blog, but you are sounding a tad paranoid.
It’s so boring that the right can only come up with the ‘I used to like you but you’ve lost the plot now’ comments
Is it taught in trolling school?
The UK is not doing well. We are world beaters, but world beaters in things like deaths per million. Part of this poor performance is down to the obbligato of Covid scepticism played in the media, amplified now by this Great Barrington declaration. The uncertainty, doubt and confusion expressed in the media translates into sloppy practice in the high street. There is a paradox here. The people who want to “just get the economy running again” are in fact delaying the resumption of economic activity by contributing to half-hearted compliance with the rules, which just makes the Covid situation worse.
It’s weird
Their policy appears to be based on the ‘Tobacco / cancer denier’ strategy and that, of course, also delayed effective action
The tobacco/cancer link and the CO2/global warming links were opposed because they threatened corporate profits. Evolution was opposed because it threatened fundamentalist ideology. Lockdown is being opposed because it is perceived to threaten corporate profits *and* libertarian ideology. Although corporations would do better to go for efficient suppression or even elimination of the virus. There are market opportunities in beating transmission, in the field of air dynamics management.
[…] Cross-posted from Tax Research UK […]
Richard,
I mainly agree with your positions on many issues and to some extent, I agree with this post but
1) The term “herd immunity” may or may not be used in human immunology but the concept most assuredly is. That is how vaccinations work, whether it be mumps, measles or COVID.
2) I agree that long term immunity from the virus is not in any way proven, making discussions of herd immunity moot.
3) A cull of the oldies? – maybe but I generally subscribe to the cock-up theory of government rather than the malevolent. That’s not to say the malevolent doesn’t exist and given the possibly alleged Cummings eugenicist leanings may actually be true in this case.
4) Far right economics? – maybe but certainly some neoliberal rentiers missing their rents and wanting to get back to receiving them at the expense of everyone else.
I think the main point to make – this declaration aside – is that the initial lockdown in March was meant to buy time. That time has been wasted by this government due to ideology, incompetence and corruption.
Given that any sort of community immunity may not be possible and that the virus is endemic. We need to live with it. The question is how?
The time bought in the early part of the year should’ve been used to
1) put in place an effective track and trace system – proven in many countries to work in controlling the virus. We, however, spend £12BN on a spreadsheet that doesn’t work. As an IT professional, I’m speechless.
2) source increased provision of health facilities, personnel, PPE etc.
3) work out systems, procedures to allow businesses, schools universities to reopen and more importantly properly resource it – to crudely paraphrase the IMF on Monday – screw the debt.
Thank you for debating the actual issues
Rich mans Libertarians who don’t give a monkeys…
On the alternative to lockdown being essentially purdah for the elderly & those at risk: that’s an option but as a serious policy it would require massive medical and economic support to be effective…which is not going to happen with this government who completely lack any organisational ability whatsoever and have already illustrated both an utterly venal incompetence and deadly callousness.
In the real world its a repeat call for the “Cummings Cull” :
“… if that means some pensioners die, too bad”
-now wrote very large indeed.
Right now, with no cure for Covid19 available and no certainty that effective immunity is achievable through exposure to it, the notion of herd immunity should have no place in public health planning. Give the mindset of some within the UK Gov’s inner power group, herd immunity might be just one step away from eugenics.
Yes….
We know very little about covid-19 but it appears to able inflict large amount damage to many organs in the human body in the young and elderly. It’s causing long term symptoms to the lungs, heart and nervous system, kidneys, liver, blood vessels and gastrointestinal tract that remain weeks, months and a possibility for life. This virus far more complicated than influence its more like an blood disease attacking the whole body and it would naive to unleash the potential of this monster for so-called herd immunity.
Apart from those who lose their jobs and income and for whom the Government offers no support–as it should, the calls to re-open the economy come from the owners of wealth, who are like the owner of a magnificent car with its engine in pieces on the bench. He owns a heap of scrap metal.
The wealthy see their assets sitting idle and their wealth evaporating. No wonder they’re frantic!
I think the discussion so far misses an important point, which you imply in your article.
1) A politically motivated body, American Institute for Economic Research, produces a report aimed at press coverage in the states before a presidential election in which Trump has resisted lockdown measures.
2) It gets this press coverage- E.g. https://www.newsweek.com/over-6000-scientists-sign-anti-lockdown-petition-saying-its-causing-irreparable-damage-1537047
3) The BBC then regurgitate US political narrative this as news, in the public interest to the uk, although it’s likely to breed suspicion and undermine public participation in local restrictions, therefore serving to heighten risk to the vulnerable.
4) The BBC then is not serving the UK public interest, but the election chances to Trump, at the cost of public health.
This does illustrate quite well George Monbiot’s recent article – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/07/bbc-independence-corporation-news-agenda-media-oligarchs
Members of my neighbours family were quite ill with confirmed covid at the beginning, just tested positive again.
Immunity?
That’s my point
It is not possible
It’s interesting to note that none of the right wing critics in this thread mentioned the one thing that would make a difference is a properly functioning testing and tracing system.
However to do so would mean reversing 35 years of drastic reduction in local authority powers, effectiveness and budget reductions.
UK PLC is functionally completely not-fit-fir-purpose thanks to the idiocy of neoliberalism. The evidence is the reality that we live within it’s ruins.
Hear, hear
All very interesting I have to say.
I go with Richard on this one.
So, the mental health of our citizens was great was it before Covid? Yeah, right.
With zero hours contracts, gig economy jobs, BREXIT looming as an economic disaster, job insecurity because of austerity (remember that?) mass manipulation by social media that in itself was causing enough damage to the young with suicide and depression rates rising for girls I believe as a result? Oh, and what about the environment BEFORE we lost all those car and plane journeys.
Oh – so all was rosy with the world was it? Says who? All I get a sense of with this ‘declaration’ is crocodile tears and political opportunism.
On top of that is the failure of the party voted into power in December 2019 to deal with the epidemic properly – over centralising Covid management like the communists it despises and then shoving money down the gullets of the private sector to deliver track and trace (but branded under the NHS, just in case it all goes tits up).
No use of the local NHS systems (clinics and surgeries) to deliver testing, no boosted spending in local testing capacity at all.
What many of you arguing over the issue of ‘herd immunity’ don’t seem to get is that whilst you focus on what is a disputed idea to score points, YOUR GOVERNMENT has continued to run down the NHS even during the epidemic – CONTINUED – as it was before Covid to undermine the service to manufacture consent to further privatise it in the near future.
Where is the concern for the mental health of people worried that they may have Covid but can’t even get a fucking test as I was a number of weeks ago? We were supposed to protect the NHS vulnerable people with cancer could still get treatment but we are seeing an increase in cancer mortality!
Where is the concern for mental health in a Government that has talked more about creating debt than helping people and refuses to accept it’s fiscal responsibilities?
This Government and Libertarians in the US are frankly extremists who are on a trajectory to destroy the post war world and this ‘declaration’ is just pure bullshit in the pursuit of that aim. When will some of you open your bloody eyes?
Thanks
Well said!
Herd immunity works in herds.
Humanity is not a herd. It is curious to me that those who claim to wish to defend individual liberty require us to treat human beings as a herd; which entails ignoring individual liberty.
We are being offered a paradox as a solution.
Agreed
It also works on the basis of the majority protecting the minority
That is not the logic here: it is reversed
So this is not herd immunity
The logic of the Great Barrington position is that above a certain age, older citizens are outcasts: untouchables. You can see where this will go, if once it takes political hold in a neoliberal world. Those outside the ‘community’ will slowly lose their protection, unnoticed and marginalised by definition; to become pariahs. Good intentions (even if the exist, and I suspect they may not, or have not been thought through; this is short-term opportunism on steroids)? Good intentions often end in hell.
Remember that this was Cummings view back in February, and he was really shocked to discover that people care about their grannies.
[…] wrote about the so-called Great Barrington Declaration yesterday. Others have commented. This is a summary from […]
Just to add my two pennyworth …..
“important paper by Fox et al in 1971”
argued that emphasis on simple thresholds was not
appropriate for public health, because of the importance
of population heterogeneity, assumptions of homogeneous mixing and simple thresholds have persisted.
The World Health Organization has condemned the “dangerous” concept of herd immunity for managing the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
“Aiming to achieve herd immunity naturally is ‘dangerous’, WHO warns”
Dr. Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies programme said it was wrong to think that countries can “magically” make their populations immune to novel coronavirus.
During a press briefing on May 12, Dr. Ryan said the concept of herd immunity is generally used for calculating how many people will need to be vaccinated in a population in order to protect those who are not vaccinated.
“We need to be careful while using terms in this way around natural infections in humans because it can lead to a very brutal arithmetic which does not put people, life and suffering at the centre of that equation,” he said.
expert comments about herd immunity
There have been questions from journalists regarding herd immunity.
“Prof Willem van Schaik, Professor of Microbiology and Infection, University of Birmingham, said:”
“Herd immunity describes the phenomenon that at-risk individuals are protected from infection because they are surrounded by immune individuals. The spread of the virus is thus minimised. Currently, we talk mostly about herd immunity in the context of vaccines. If a sufficiently high number of individuals in a population are vaccinated, they will provide herd immunity to the small number of people that are not vaccinated (e.g. for medical or religious reasons). We have recently seen cases of measles outbreaks where herd immunity was not sufficiently high because children were not vaccinated out of completely unfounded fears against vaccination.
“Herd immunity exists for flu. If large proportions of the population would get a flu vaccine that could protect non-immunised individuals. The problem with flu is that it is difficult to know which strains of flu (think of strains as variations on a theme: it is flu but just a little bit different) will be causing infections at any given point in time and so that is why the flu vaccine is not always 100% effective. The major problem with coronavirus is that this is a novel virus that has never spread before, which means that everyone is at risk for infection. Herd immunity can only be reached by widespread vaccination (but there is currently no vaccine, and it may take a long time before an effective vaccine becomes available) or by individuals falling ill and recovering thereby developing natural immunity against the virus.
“Unfortunately, a very rough estimate suggests that we will only reach herd immunity to Covid-19 when approximately 60% of the population is immune (and remember that immunity is currently only reached by getting the infection as we have no vaccine!). The major downside is that this will mean that in the UK alone at least 36 million people will need to be infected and recover. It is almost impossible to predict what that will mean in terms of human costs but we are conservatively looking at 10,000s deaths, and possibly at 100,000s of death. The only way to make this work would be to spread out these millions of cases over a relatively long period of time so that the NHS does not get overwhelmed. Social distancing might contribute to this. Clearly the government believes that this process is manageable and building up herd immunity is the most effective way to stem Covid-19. I note that the UK is the only country in Europe that is following this strategy.
Thank you
Thanks, Peter. The 1971 Fox paper is mentioned in the 2011 article that I linked above – ” ‘Herd Immunity’: A Rough Guide” https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/cir007
As that article makes clear, “herd immunity” is used to mean a variety of different things, (1) the proportion of immune individuals in a population; (2) the threshold proportion of immune individuals that should lead to a decline in incidence of infection; (3) a pattern of immunity that should protect a population from infection.
As they say, “A common implication of the term is that the risk of infection among susceptible individuals in a population is reduced by the presence and proximity of immune individuals”.
But that all assumes that you have immune individuals in the first place, which is not at all clear for this novel coronavirus.
We risk tumbling down a very mean and nasty slippery slope if we accept a framing in which individual human beings are treated as a “herd” with some who can be saved while others are sacrificed.
I’m kinda speechless here, reading down the list of ‘comments.’ Seriously. Richard has just pointed out WHERE this statement has come from and the policies behind the right-wing group that issued the statement. (So…Richard has an ‘agenda’ but The American Institute for Economic Research doesn’t? Pull the other one.)
Kind of appalling how many people think it’s okay to lock the old folks away or let them die.
Wonder who is going to look after their children during the day, when grannies and granddads are either dead, sick, or locked away for good, and no longer available for unpaid childcare? So much for the ‘elderly’ being a drain on the system. Before the wheels starting coming off the economic cart (due to Brexit as well as Covid), retirees were vital to keeping the economy going for many many younger workers. I personally know three of my ex-colleagues from my last job, who retired in order to look after grandchildren so their own kids could go to work.
Gosh, it’s so easy to just jump on the latest bandwagon that offers a simplistic solution to a complicated problem, isn’t it? Amazing how often these simplistic solutions involve sacrificing other people.
Richard has been offering well-thought-out and very do-able solutions to the current economic crisis caused by Covid. I suggest the numpties who support sacrificing a sizeable portion of our population instead, might want to take a look at them.
Thanks Jan
The ignorance in this article is astonishing.
There are over 200 cold viruses. Once you have had one, you gain immunity to that cold virus. But there are still over 200 you have yet to get.
There are four strains of flu virus and you never become immune to any of them as they mutate too quickly.
So either Covid is like the cold and we can gain herd immunity. Or it is like the flu, in which case there is no effective vaccine to give lasting immunity and there is no chance of herd immunity.
If the latter is the case, we need to work out how we live. Do we constantly lock down for the rest of humanity’s existence, or do we just accept that we have an added cause of death amongst all of the others?
Apart from the fact that it is very apparent that you are posting from a trolling account, your logic is very obviously wrong. If there were 200 cold viruses to which we had obtained herd immunity then there would no longer be 200 cold viruses: they would disappear. They don’t. That’s because we do not have herd immunity. And nor is there any vaccine against them. So what you are claiming is wrong.
Getting rid of the old is nothing new look at the Liverpool care pathway treatment that was used or Stafford or Shipman etc, It starved people of water, and food so they would die, this would mainly affect the old but some young people as well. Also, look at the mental health act of 2005 where a doctor can declare your life not having the proper quality and thus end it. Ever wondered why some old folks do not want to go to the hospital? They knew they would come out again. So all that you have outlined is nothing new, the foundations have been laid decades ago. I have asked doctors and nurses the question ” do medical staff deliberately kill people” they have answered YES.
There have been reports by non identified police officers who say the same thing. If you try to fight the medical industry, they have the protection of the law, and the hospitals’ et al. Most of the time you are up against it and you are on your own. Try it and see what happens. For the govt to proposes the stuff you have outline there must be a system already in place and that system takes time to get into position. It is already here – if you think I am wearing a tin hat, then your post-Richard is in that same category and I will gladly lend you mine.
Addendum
“Ever wondered why some old folks do not want to go to the hospital? They knew they would come out again”. Correction: “Ever wondered why some old folks do not want to go to the hospital? They knew they would not come out again.”
In this COVID 19 crisis, we have seen the quick reaction of the NHS to deny treatments to people It was so quick people were shocked at disabled people getting letters asking them to sign a Do not resuscitate form. I have spoken to a Doctor and the person said the reason why nightingale hospitals were underused, was because the hospitals were dumping, the old, cancer, heart attack people et al. So this left the hospitals full of empty beds – in Wards. It was these wards that were turned into COVID ICUs.
This attack on the sick is very eugenic and very worrying. At the drop of a hat, we have seen many thousands of people denied treatment, because of the introduction of COVID 19. There was no need for this, the number of people getting the coronavirus has not reached flu levels and therefore the NHS was not overwhelmed.
No, I am not saying COVID 19 is not serious, but throwing the baby out of the bath, is extremely disconcerting. There is a lot of stuff in the media about conspiracy theories, that is because they know people, have some very good ammunition to believe them. It is this COVID 19 herd immunity and the issues I have outlined above, and the closing down of the economy which will fuel them for generations to come.
I have known for a long time that this country has been on the road to tyranny. Just read Peter Laurie’s booth Beneath the City streets.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beneath-City-Streets-Peter-Laurie/dp/0586050558
There are so many logical flaws in your argument.
First of all, even if you are right and up till now herd immunity wasn’t a term used in medical science, that’s got absolutely nothing to do with the reliability of the declaration.
This is because the term herd immunity has been bandied around so much since the start of the pandemic that maybe the authors simply liked the soumd of it and decided to adopt it, or maybe they wanted to phrase it in such a way that the general public understand what they mean (Just because a term hasn’t been used up till now, doesn’t mean people can’t start using it). This in no way impairs the credibility of the declaration.
To address your second complaint concerning the lack of evidence that Covid 19 can actually achieve herd immunity. Well there is no evidence that it can’t either. So why not try? The longer we go without a vaccine the more likely it is that everyone will get Covid anyway. In fact it might very well be that we never have an effective vaccine (I find it very hard to trust rumblings from Russia and China saying they have created a vaccine). If we had attempted to pursue herd immunity from the beginning of the virus, as the declaration suggests, it would either be over by now or we would have enough data on the virus to fully understand it and also determine if herd immunity is possible. Such knowledge might well be vital in preventing further such diseases. (Everything I’ve heard/read so far seems to be focused on predicting/containing/creating a vaccine rather than truly understanding the virus).
Finally, the fact that it was signed at an economics centre doesn’t phase me in the slightest. This is because Covid 19 is just as much an economic issue as anything else. In fact it is arguable that the future economic cost of paying back the ridiculous amount of borrowing and money printing could kill more people than Covid.
Also why is your comment box at the bottom of the comment section rather than the top. It’s very annoying.
Thank you for your comment
First, note the observations that I have made with regard to the term herd immunity, which has implicit within its many ethical issues, particularly with regard towards attitudes towards populations and hierarchies within them.
Second, note that the term herd immunity, when used in its conventional sense, refers to the action taken by the many to protect the few, whereas the way in which it is being used in this declaration is the reverse of that i.e. the many are being permitted to carry on as if there is no medical threat, with the fewer number at risk being required to assume all the risk. As such it is not her community that has been discussed in this declaration.
Third, no one is talking about Vaccines from China or Russia: very large numbers of mainstream pharmaceutical companies seem to be working on vaccine development at present, so please let’s not go into completely ridiculous political spheres of comment. But let me also make clear, if there is no vaccine, there can be no heard immunity: the terms go together.
And finally, you may not be worried about the economics, but reasonable people are.
I don’t see any ethical issues with the term herd immunity. It’s a term that in the broad public consciousness simply describes the situation where there are no longer enough viable candidates for the virus to propogate effectively. You might not be comfortable with the idea of allowing the lower risk segment of the population to contract the virus and hopefully become immune. This by definition is the many putting themselves at risk to protect the few. You just need to make sure that the few are sufficiently protected, or at least protected as much as possible. There will always be risk to the vulnerable, if there wasn’t any risk they wouldn’t be vulnerable, but you can minimize that risk. I don’t think lockdown has done anything to minimize that risk.
If you find such an approach ethically ambiguous I could argue that the current approach is just as ethically debatable, as it could very well lead to more deaths than if we had tried to build up a certain level of herd immunity. And if it is certain associations with the term herd immunity within the medical sphere (which you are not a pet of as a professor in TAX), because I can think of none in the public sphere, then that is hardly a good argument for dismissing a declaration clearly designed for public as well as professional consumption.
Also the failure to create a vaccine, Which is a very real possibility, does not imply herd immunity won’t work. It just means they couldn’t work out a vaccine. These things are complicated, if it was as simple as you imply we would have a vaccine already. You conveniently focused on a throw away comment at the end of that paragraph which I simply added to preclude you arguing anything along the lines of China or Russia claiming to have a vaccine and was entirely not the point of the argument. It was intellectually dishonest of you to focus on it, which you did as you opened up your argument by attacking it when it wasn’t even part of my argument.
Finally you clearly didn’t read my post properly or you willfully ignored half my points while misinterpreting others. I didn’t say I was unconcerned by the economic impact. On the contrary, I said the economic impact of lockdown could be worse than the virus itself and potentially kill much more.
I’d be more than happy to meet you to argue this in person. But I think I have sufficiently demonstrated that the case is not as clear cut as you would lead everyone to believe.
You like everyone else who has commented on herd immunity have entirely missed the point – but revealed a great deal as well, which is – as your opening comment makes clear – that you are utterly indifferent to the ethics of this issue – which is what I was discussing – as so many other people have, as well
You’re willing to argue whether or not herd immunity – a politically and ethically laden term that treats humans as if they are, as the name implies, herds rather than people with free will – is an appropriate term but you ignore the argument in the article I wrote and in the comments that I have made that follows which is that whatever the term that is being proposed in the GBD it is not herd immunity as it is used by medics that is being proposed (where the herd is made immune by vaccine to protect the vulnerable, who as a result do not bear the risk, whereas as what is being proposed is that the vulnerable are quarantined to effectively allow the herd to continue behaving as if there is no risk) and anyway assumes that the policy proposed is possible when a) there is no evidence that it is or b) that it can be delivered and c) is without stated thresholds for acceptable risk, meaning that it is in public health terms nonsense.
And just to show your lack of knowledge and research, I have never been a professor in tax, as you claim
I do then rather strongly suspect that you’re just a troll coming here via Tim Worstall’s web site because I guess he’s written about this – because it’s impossible to explain the level of traffic from far-right sources otherwise
I don’t believe you know anything about this issue, to be candid, whereas I am discussing political economy, and I am a professor in that
You might be happy to meet in person, but I won’t be wasting my time, because you don’t understand the issues, at all
And just in case you don’t get it, herd immunity is not the issue: the capture of medicine by the far-right that will cause public harm is
The comment prompt is at the bottom, I’ll bet, to encourage peple to read the discussion – and perhaps think – before plunging in.
On your comment, Joshua, “If we had attempted to pursue herd immunity from the beginning of the virus, as the declaration suggests, it would either be over by now or ….” totally fails to register what you are contemplating, which would have been mass death – enormous, and surely, in the strictest sense “unconscionable”. In the ‘U’ K alone the best scientific estimates would have placed that a 500,000 dead by Christmas – or even more.
Finally, you mock the significance of the origin of this faux ‘Declaration’ – but why did these supposedly dispasionate savants seek not only the inflated language but also the ‘Great Barrington’ label? You may not think it matters – but they did. As “Yes Minister” once put it – they have rather ‘nailed their trousers to the mast’ and by trying to take them down, you…. – well, you see what I mean?
EDITOR COMMENT
Your comment was deleted as it was abusive – and that may be acceptable on Tim Worstall’s blog but it isn’t here
This site has a comment policy and you and others who wish to abuse it will be deleted
This reply is intended for Richard and not Nigel. Calling everyone who disagrees with you a troll is intellectually dishonest, I have done nothing but try to debate the issue in good faith and you have been nothing but dishonest and deceitful in how you argue. You are clearly someone with no regard for the truth, only what you perceive to be the truth. You are scared of honest debate and keep on repeating the same flawed arguments without addressing mine and even misrepresenting what I say for your own purposes.
I may have been wrong about what you are a professor of, but it is certainly not medicine, but your about me page is riddled with tax related references so I can’t be far off. You probably got your degree at the university of Salford or similar because it doesn’t seem to be worth much.
Please do me a favour and get a real job. Maybe in Tesco where you might be useful.
I don’t expect you will publish this comment because God forbid people realise what a charlatan you really are. You will just continue to hide behind your posse of yes men, pretending it makes you right, bit you couldn’t be more wrong.
You really have made my case
Thanks for doing so
And thanks for confirming in the process that you were only here to abuse, and that you really do hold most people in contempt – which is precisely what I think those supporting this policy do and which is why I so oppose it
It’s actually quite fun to have all my instincts confirmed
And calling me a troll amongst other baseless things isn’t abusive? You too faced cocksucker. It’s people like you who are driving the world to ruin and I hope you rot and die as painfully as possible.
Now that’s abusive you complete twit.
And you wondered why I thought you might be here to troll….
I will not now be posting any other comments from those I think from the far right, and many are coming in
Thank you for sharing your point of view on the Declaration. When I was reading through it earlier this morning I immediately got a bad feeling but was having difficulty putting my finger on where that feeling was coming from.
I read it as absolutely blue sky thinking. Suggestions that could not work in the world we find ourselves in. From experience, the care industry is on its knees in England, relying on agency workers due to a lack of permanent staff. Minimising staff rotation is near impossible, especially if the population is open to a virus which will push sickness rates up.
I really hope this is brushed off by governments. As someone in the younger, healthy adult bracket I would rather have a difficult few years than leave older generations to defend for themselves. I think it would be better for an entire population to be slightly screwed than an older demographic be completely written off.
Let’s not forget, it’s not just older people who are dying here. The amount of news reports of younger people who have caught COVID screaming “I didn’t think it would happen to me – I thought it was a hoax!” indicates we are not very sympathetic as a species. I pray this will not be our downfall but we’re not great at handling a situation until it affects us directly. At that point, it might be too late to turn it around.
Thanks for the article.
Thanks
Hello Richard.
A few of the comments on this subject mention that, with lockdown measures businesses will fold, and some people who lose their jobs do not have enough savings to keep going. The government in the U.K. (but not the devolved administrations) is always in a position to fund a reintroduction of the furlough scheme, and support mortgage/rent payments.
I do not support herd immunity practices for human beings. Kill off some in society so the rest can continue to fund the rentiers, with those taking this decision knowing full well they shall be saved. Like military high command in WW1 sending the ‘expendable’ over the top.
I note too that President Trump received full socialist health care for his treatment of Covid-19.
What your more neoliberal respondents do not acknowledge is that the only entity that can adequately combat an event such as that caused by coronavirus is the state. Such events are so large that anything apart from the state is incapable of combating it. Markets are an inadequate way of dealing with the event because markets restrict access to parts of the population but the disease effects everyone. No amount of letting people get on with their lives and carrying on with behaviour as before will deal with the disease. It is like fighting WW2 using only private armies hired out for a fee. It just isn’t possible. Only the state can provide adequate medical facilities, to provide for local funding to allow for coordination of testing and tracing within the community and ensure that citizens are adequately provided for in the event of job losses and business failures. Without such state intervention it is impossible to create whatever the normal will be. If these correspondents want to get back to a semblance of what life was like before they need to accept a bigger state but ideologically they cannot accept this and neither will their representatives in Government.
The other issue with the “herd immunity” thesis is we do not know what the effect of allowing more people to be infected will be. Infections and deaths at present are lower because the number of infections has been suppressed due to social distancing and lockdowns. Greater levels of infection within the population will make it harder to protect the vulnerable. Younger people who work in care homes, hospitals, food delivery services etc will have a higher probability of infection and therefore there will be a greater chance of the vulnerable becoming infected also. To casually suggest that, “should we protect the more vulnerable in society whilst letting those not at threat get on with their lives” is very difficult. Unless you totally isolate the vulnerable protection is impossible. You create a modern leper colony or you accept many more people will become infected and die as a result of allowing the majority to do as they please. How do you decide who is vulnerable? Not all 60 year olds will want to be put in a colony but this is the implication from some of your commentators. Some who believe they are not vulnerable will be and they will become infected and possibly die. It is important to avoid simplicity when combating events such as this.
Thanks
Interesting to dig around on the nature of the source of this “Declaration”. Apologies if the link below, from Wired, has already been included in the discussion above, but here it is anyway.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/great-barrington-declaration-herd-immunity-scientific-divide
Herd Immunity not a term used in Public Health? A short history for your edification…..
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31924-3/fulltext
Now read what I have written here on use of the term as implict in the so-called Great Barrington Declaration
And then you’ll see that even if the term is valid – and I question the ethics of that – as do many public health physicians – what they are proposing comes nowhere near the accepted use of the term
Notably respected medical and scientific journals are rejecting this Libertarian/Neoliberal political ideology masquerading as supposedly sensible scientific herd immunity policy:-
https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/07/health/nejm-editorial-political-leadership-bn/index.html
🙂
I feel that you may have far left tendencies….?
I’m a social democrat who believes in a mixed economy
If you think that caring about people and wanting social justice is far left you only reveal your own far-right right views
Personally think I’m centre-right. The assumption that anyone who considers the economy (and associated health matters) as important when judging what measures are best, has an objective to cull the population due to their far-right views strikes me as quite extreme.
Dominic Cummings was very obviously happy with such a cull – the quotes have been widely published
So where is he on the political spectrum?
And if you support this government – which he runs, where does that put you?
You’re very accusatory and confrontational, suggesting you simply want people to agree with you. Your blog, your prerogative.
Why not answer the question?
You didn’t
I gave you the chance to debate and explore the issue
You didn’t
So sure I’m accusatory – because it seems like you[‘re actually a far-right troll from my perspective
The frightening aspect of some of these comments, and of the wider public debate is the eagerness to embrace the false polarisation between “lockdown” (prioritise health and crash the economy) and “herd immunity” (save the economy and cull people). There is a wilful ignoring of what has proved to work ( S Korea, Taiwan, China, New Zealand etc), which is to get the ‘find,test,trace,isolate,support ‘ FTTIS system working , to get infection right down and then liberate the economy. The UK seems unable to achieve a FTTIS system – apparently because of ideology – (imposing a private dysfunctional system – Serco, Deloitte etc…. ) onto an existing public system – local public health authorities, NHS, universites etc. This seems to have got us the worst of both worlds – highest deaths and largest negative economic impact in Europe.
Agreed
Dr John Campbell isn’t very impressed and notes that the declaration contains no references https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lSmSWx6kjA
In a Google search for “Great Barrington Declaration” this blog is currently the sixth hit, so wherever you got the earlier right wing comments from that drove it up the rankings you are probably getting a lot of traffic from Google now.
The GBD is in part a continuation of the letter sent to the government two weeks ago, with one of the lead authors of that letter also one of the people behind the GBD, and of concern is that the authors were asked to meet the government. Nafeez Ahmed wrote an article detailing the right-wing links to the authors of that letter.
https://bylinetimes.com/2020/09/23/scamademics-right-wing-lobbying-groups-reviving-herd-immunity-in-the-uk/
Over the last few months he has also written some good articles about our government’s pursuit of herd immunity
https://bylinetimes.com/author/nafeezahmed/
We are learning more and more about how a sizeable number of people are afflicted by long Covid, with lasting damage to the brain, heart, blood vessels, lungs, intestines, kidneys, liver, and more. The GBD makes no mention of long Covid. How can any supposed cost-benefit analysis of allowing vs not allowing the virus to spread through “the herd” not include long Covid?
There is a recent preprint study (i.e. not yet peer reviewed) looking at 1.3m people that found that while only 2.47% were classified as high risk and so needing to shield, a further 26.41% were classified as moderate risk, with this group having an intermediate risk of infection and mortality but case-fatality rate comparable to the high risk group. Enacting the GBD would therefore require that 29% of the population, plus all of the people that care for those in this group, be cut off from society. And before that we have to go through and identify the ~20 million people in the UK who are high or moderate risk and inform them of the need to shield — how exactly would we do that?
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.09.17.20196436v1
And now we are seeing cases of reinfections where the symptoms are worse the second time around
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/06/flurry-of-coronavirus-reinfections-leaves-scientists-puzzled
So we cut 29% of the population plus their carers off from society, a sizeable part of “the herd” will develop severe adverse effects that last for weeks, months, or longer after infection, and the immunity benefits might only last for months for some unknown proportion who catch it.
What I don’t understand is if they are so concerned about public health and the damage to society of control measures then why don’t they advocate for the least restrictive model of all, the New Zealand model, where people can interact socially, get their medical treatment, fill out sports stadiums, eat out, and so on. Why aren’t the GBD advocates pressing for zero Covid? To avoid doing so they have presented a false dichotomy where the supposed only two options are lockdowns and herd immunity, but we know this is a false choice because South Korea and Taiwan have got the virus under control without ever having implemented a national lockdown. National lockdowns are not a common factor in all countries who have got the virus under control. According to Professor Devi Sridhar the three essential factors found in all these countries are effective test/trace/isolate, enforced mandatory quarantine at borders for arrivals, and population understanding and compliance with directives. She and Independent SAGE are against lockdown but in favour of going for zero Covid. Why don’t the GBD people acknowledge that this is possible and we know it’s possible because it’s been done?
I was disappointed with Sir Keir Starmer’s Observer interview at the weekend where he set out his action plan for dealing with the pandemic and it made no mention of borders. It was so lacklustre and lacking in vision and ambition. We saw in Iceland how they got the virus under control but then two French tourists with positive tests not following quarantine led to a massive outbreak, so we know that border control is essential and compliance has to be enforced. Why is Sir Keir content to accept a manageable level of the virus, and with it a certain level of mortality and other harm, why isn’t he saying we have to protect lives and protect the economy and the way to do this is to follow the countries who have shown us how to successfully get the virus under control? The choice isn’t the economy and minimising non-Covid health harms vs protecting people from Covid, the choice is on the one side protecting lives, protecting the economy, opening up the economy and society completely where the only downside is mandatory enforced two week quarantine for all arrivals at our borders with no exceptions vs on the other side some level of restrictions on society, the economy, health outcomes, with an “acceptable” level of harm and mortality from the virus. If the only negative is that we need to quarantine if we want to enter or re-enter the country, why are we not choosing this and instead choosing either the harm of shutting down society to a certain level combined with the harm of an “acceptable” level of infection and with it an “acceptable” level of mortality or the harm of letting the virus spread uncontrolled through the non-vulnerable to supposedly gain herd immunity?
Thanks
I find it incredible the way intelligent, otherwise skeptical people continue to push the “no alternative” argument re lockdowns without even mentioning Sweden. This further discredits the spurious idea that opposing lockdowns is a right-wing or even far-right position. Nor can one dismiss the arguments of thousands of expert signatories raising their concerns about the impact of current measures on the very people it’s supposed to protect, not to mention their debatable efficacy, by reference to a couple of tweets and another expert being interviewed on Sky News, as “Nothing to do with science” because it has links to a certain institute. This is conspiracy theory: one which would of course discredit, in some cases rightly, vast swathes of research on all sorts of subjects. Perhaps one should ask the same questions about the influence of Big Pharma and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on the WHO?
Here is another statement from medical professionals with a less snazzy website, which I think frames the issues from a medical perspective in a much clearer way:
https://docs4opendebate.be/en/open-letter/
Is this right-wing too?
Why not?