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<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="2147226" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="herd-immunity">Herd immunity</keyword> by infection is not a viable strategy to fight the <keyword id="1754604" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="coronavirus">coronavirus</keyword> pandemic. </li><li>Chasing natural herd immunity could lead to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/herd-immunity-plan-great-barrington-declaration-wont-work-2020-10">640,000 additional coronavirus deaths</a> by February 2023. It also probably wouldn't work. </li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/herd-immunity-plan-great-barrington-declaration-wont-work-2020-10">Still, the recent Libertarian "Great Barrington Declaration"</a>, which proposes an end to <keyword id="8763838" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="covid-19">COVID-19</keyword> restrictions and suggests trying to achieve herd immunity instead, received emphatic support from the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-briefs-great-barrington-disputed-science-2020-10">White House</a>.</li><li>Last week, one of the declaration's authors, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, debated Harvard University epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch.</li><li>Their debate rendered 6 big reasons why herd immunity is a bad idea.</li></ul>It's a tantalizing prospect to think that herd immunity could end the coronavirus pandemic. If true herd immunity were achieved, the coronavirus would no longer spread, and we could go back to normal life as we knew it before.But herd immunity is tricky to pull off. It can only be achieved in two ways: by getting lots of people sick, or by giving lots of people an effective, safe vaccine. The goal is the same: to get a sizeable majority of the population resistant to infection, so that a disease can no longer spread among our collective "herd." The consensus among epidemiologists is that chasing herd immunity without a vaccine would not work. It risks too many unnecessary deaths.Even so, the concept has become a topic of conversation in households, on social media, on TV, in bars — with people asking: "Why not try it?" Those conversations gained steam last month when the White House propped up The <a href="https://gbdeclaration.org/">Great Barrington Declaration,</a> a document <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/herd-immunity-plan-great-barrington-declaration-wont-work-2020-10">drafted</a> at a Libertarian think tank suggesting that most people should try to go for herd immunity, encouraging infections among the world's young, healthy population. "For people who are under ... let's say 60 or 50, the lockdown harms are, mentally and physically, worse than COVID," Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, one of the authors of the declaration said last week, during a <a href="https://twitter.com/JAMA_current/status/1323291562537869313">debate </a><a href="https://twitter.com/JAMA_current/status/1323291562537869313">hosted by the </a><a href="https://twitter.com/JAMA_current/status/1323291562537869313">medical journal JAMA</a>.Opposite him was epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch from Harvard, one of the thousands of leading experts who signed on to a stinging <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/herd-immunity-plan-great-barrington-declaration-wont-work-2020-10">rebuttal</a> of the declaration, who explained why the approach is so dangerous."I think it's a great idea to look for creative solutions, but nobody responsible would abandon what we know works, which is controlling viral spread," Lipsitch said. Their conversation threw up six overarching reasons why achieving natural herd immunity — the kind that doesn't require a coronavirus vaccine — won't work. <h2>One: Nobody thinks it's a good idea to get everybody infected, but just targeting the young is near impossible</h2><div type="image" title="wisconsin bar crowd lockdown" height="1741" width="2500" msid="79195298" hostid="261"></div>You'd be hard pressed to find a serious <keyword id="6364896" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="public-health">public health</keyword> expert who thinks natural herd immunity will work. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-brings-in-regional-measures-cases-surge-2020-11">Leaders in Sweden recently backtracked</a> on their <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-coronavirus-strategy-explained-culture-of-trust-and-obedience-2020-4">unique</a> stab at herd immunity against the virus because it killed so many people in their nursing homes. Bhattacharya name-checked Sweden as a good example of herd immunity done right.But, when pressed, he agreed that letting anyone in the population get sick in order to drive up disease resistance in the community is not a good idea. "You should social distance when you can, definitely use masks when you can't social distance," he said. "All of the mitigation measures are really important."Even Sweden's approach did not follow what the <keyword id="10106945" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="great-barrington-declaration">Great Barrington Declaration</keyword> suggests: "focused protection" for the vulnerable, and focused infection of the young and healthy.Bhattacharya asked listeners for their ideas about how to achieve this focused approach, and added a few of his own ideas, including employing rapid testing in nursing homes and multi-generational households, and isolating cases. "We protect the vulnerable with every single tool we have," he said. "We use our testing resources. We use our staff rotations in nursing homes. We use PPE. We do all kinds of things."The problem is, <a href="https://khn.org/morning-breakout/nevada-reverses-decision-on-rapid-tests-in-nursing-homes/">those ideas</a> are already being tried across the US, to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/10/07/world/covid-coronavirus">only mixed success</a>. Nevada has found the US's new federal rapid testing protocol in nursing homes so unreliable that the <a href="https://khn.org/morning-breakout/nevada-reverses-decision-on-rapid-tests-in-nursing-homes/">state sought to ban them</a> last month, a nursing home workforce <a href="https://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana-s-care-homes-struggle-with-staffing-and-ever-changing-regulations-as-covid-19-cases/article_3d8aa0e7-9144-5391-a6f8-9cd996e2332d.html">already spread thin is getting sick</a>, and case isolation is near-impossible to achieve in the dangerous pre-<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/who-clarifies-comment-that-asymptomatic-transmission-is-very-rare-2020-6">symptomatic phase of many illnesses</a>, when people may transmit their virus to others before they even know they have it. <h2>Two: COVID-19 has many long-term side effects that will impact lives and the healthcare system for years to come</h2><div type="image" title="An example of &quot;COVID Toes&quot;" height="2274" width="3024" msid="79195301" hostid="261"></div>The second issue with this idea of "focused protection" is that we don't actually know who we need to protect. "For younger populations, and people who are less at risk, frankly, COVID is less of a risk than the lockdown," Bhattacharya said, reiterating that such closures harm people's psychological, mental, and physical health.But COVID-19 doesn't just kill people. It also has <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/long-term-coronavirus-symptoms-patients-sick-for-months-2020-7">devastating long-term effects</a> on many of its survivors, including debilitating <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/most-hospitalized-covid-patients-like-trump-have-neurological-symptoms-2020-10">brain fog</a>, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-patients-hair-loss-trauma-stress-2020-7">hair loss</a>, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-long-term-symptoms-rashes-covid-toes-inflammation-2020-10">swollen toes and scaly rashes</a>, <a href="https://www.tinnitus.org.uk/blog/hearing-deterioration-reported-by-discharged-covid-19-patients1">tinnitus</a>, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/interest-in-smell-therapy-covid-19-patients-suffer-smell-loss-2020-7">loss of smell</a>.The <a href="https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/8/20-0679_article">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a> notes that nearly half (45.4%) of the adult population in the US is at risk for COVID-19 complications — including death — "because of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, respiratory disease, hypertension, or cancer."<h2>Three: We don't actually know who COVID-19 kills and why</h2><div type="image" title="Orthodox funeral covid-19" height="2784" width="4034" msid="79195306" hostid="261"></div>The argument for "focused protection" also ignores the reality of what we have learned about the coronavirus: it has killed people of every age, race, and sex, as it tears through community after community across the planet.In the US, more than 45,500 people under the age of 65 have died from the coronavirus to date, according to <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm#AgeAndSex">the CDC</a>.It's impossible to know, before someone becomes infected, what their true risk is. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-black-and-brown-children-dying-from-the-coronavirus-2020-9">Children</a> have died. So have <a href="https://www.insider.com/college-student-dead-in-dorm-tested-positive-covid-19-2020-11">college students</a>, and many others who did not necessarily have hallmark preconditions. Scientists are still studying the virus to better understand how it works, but a unifying thread among severe cases may be how many <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-key-mild-severe-cases-genes-receptors-2020-5">ACE-2 receptors</a> (which the virus uses to invade our cells) we have.<h2>Four: Lockdowns save lives</h2><div type="image" title="GettyImages 1229305135" height="1333" width="2000" msid="79195314" hostid="261"></div>Lockdowns, though they are an extreme disease-fighting measure, have saved tens of thousands of lives around the world, on nearly <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-lockdowns-successful-evidence-from-around-the-world-2020-4">every continent</a>. It's true that there have been adverse consequences.Many people have lost their jobs, shuttered their businesses, missed doctor's appointments, experienced more loneliness, and started drinking more alcohol. When schools are closed, more kids go hungry, and education gets interrupted too. <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2024046">Domestic</a> abuse, child abuse, substance abuse, and <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6932a1.htm">suicidal ideation</a> have all gone up in recent months in the US. "I have not been able to go to church in person, really, in seven months," Bhattacharya lamented. However, these measures have bought critical, life-saving time for developing vaccines, formulating drugs, and discovering best practices for patient treatment. "Six months from now, [a] case might be prevented by vaccination, or might be treated by a better therapeutic," Lipsitch said.Bhattacharya also argued that lockdowns are "the single biggest generator of inequality since segregation." But that is a deeply misleading statement. Racial inequality, for example, has not been generated by the pandemic, if anything it's only<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-racial-gap-in-coronavirus-deaths-is-driven-by-racism-2020-6?r=US&amp;IR=TIR=T"> been unmasked</a>. "Obviously, the African-American community has suffered from racism for a very, very long period of time," Dr. Fauci <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fauci-racism-is-fueling-black-coronavirus-rates-deaths-2020-6">told members of Congress in June</a>. "And I cannot imagine that that has not contributed to the conditions that they find themselves in, economically and otherwise."<h2>Five: Getting rid of the virus is possible, and it doesn't require killing people</h2><div type="image" title="social distancing restaurants" height="1875" width="2500" msid="79195318" hostid="261"></div>Bhattacharya, and other backers of herd immunity, often peddle a false dichotomy between lockdowns and "normal life," with no grey area or room for virus-fighting in between.But that either-or approach doesn't take into account how much mitigation measures like distancing, avoiding crowds, and getting everybody wearing masks <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/face-masks-social-distancing-curb-spread-coronavirus-research-2020-6">can really help slow viral transmission</a>.Besides, the US hasn't ever really, truly <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/australia-extreme-lockdown-paid-off-zero-coronavirus-cases-2020-10">tried to lock down yet</a>. Even in the spring, "we really functionally shut down only about 50%," <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/fauci-only-50-percent-of-the-country-functionally-shut-down-when-mandated/2020/07/31/f686faea-d233-4d8b-b53e-22f1cba6405d_video.html">Fauci recently told</a> members of Congress. Countries including <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/australia-coronavirus-cases-melbourne-lockdown/2020/11/05/96c198b2-1cb7-11eb-ad53-4c1fda49907d_story.html">Australia</a>, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/18/sport/new-zealand-all-black-australia-bledisloe-cup-spt-intl/index.html">New Zealand</a>, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-china-back-to-normal-us-europe-struggle-2020-10">China</a> have <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-countries-controlled-coronavirus-masks-testing-tracing-plan-2020-11">already achieved the "impossible goal" of zero (or, near zero) COVID, and have largely gone back to normal life after strict lockdowns</a>. <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-reaching-zero-covid-19-possible-145108">Taiwan</a> even <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanwpc/article/PIIS2666-6065(20)30044-4/fulltext">did it without locking down</a> at all, by instituting strict screening and surveillance measures, effective isolation and quarantining, and widespread masking.<h2>Six: Natural herd immunity probably won't work for this pandemic, no matter how hard we try </h2><div type="image" title="US hospital" height="1363" width="2000" msid="79195322" hostid="261"></div>The US, like everywhere else in the world, still has a long way to go to hit even some of the lowest posited herd immunity thresholds, which require <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-covid-19-herd-immunity-2020-4">50% (or more) of the population to be exposed, and subsequently immune</a>. At best, only around <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4909117/cdc-director-redfield-90-us-population-susceptible-coronavirus-infection">10%</a> to <a href="https://www.mountsinai.org/about/newsroom/2020/study-finds-17-million-new-yorkers-have-been-infected-with-sarscov2-and-virus-was-in-nyc-earlier-than-reported-pr">20%</a> of people nationwide have been exposed.But even if everyone was to become exposed to the virus, natural herd immunity likely still wouldn't work.This is because of the way that our immunity against all coronaviruses — from common colds to this novel coronavirus — <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/2-new-coronavirus-reinfection-cases-belgium-netherlands-hong-kong-2020-8">wanes over time</a>. Immunity to this virus through prior infection is not definitive, or lasting: coronavirus reinfections <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/2-new-coronavirus-reinfection-cases-belgium-netherlands-hong-kong-2020-8">are possible</a>, and they're happening in some rare cases already. That's why serious scientists agree it's better to wait for a vaccine, and build up our collective immunity against the virus simultaneously. "Humans are not herds," the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/herd-immunity-few-people-have-had-the-coronavirus-who-2020-5">WHO Executive Director of Health Emergencies Mike Ryan said</a> in May, slamming the idea. "I think we need to be really careful when we use terms in this way around natural infections in humans, because it can lead to a very brutal arithmetic which does not put people, and life, and suffering at the center of that equation." <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewE_Dunn/status/1316739266295345152">One projection suggests</a> that attempting herd immunity in the US would result in 640,000 deaths by February 2023.

6 things to say when someone asks: 'Why can't we just go for herd immunity to end the coronavirus pandemic?'

<ul class="summary-list"><li>White House officials say the administration is warming to a controversial herd-immunity strategy advocated in a document called the <keyword id="10106945" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="great-barrington-declaration">Great Barrington Declaration</keyword>. </li><li>Under the strategy, those not particularly vulnerable to serious infections are allowed to live normally while the vulnerable are shielded.</li><li>The document is widely criticized by scientists and emphatically rejected by the World Health Organization, the UK government, and Dr. Anthony Fauci.</li></ul>The White House is embracing a controversial "<keyword id="2147226" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="herd-immunity">herd immunity</keyword>" strategy in response to the coronavirus, according to a briefing given by anonymous senior officials.The strategy would allow the virus to spread freely with the belief that most of the population would develop a degree of immunity. It advocates shielding the more vulnerable to limit loss of life.Two administration officials, who were not authorized to give their names, gave the briefing to media organizations including Business Insider.They cited a controversial document, <a href="https://gbdeclaration.org/">the Great Barrington Declaration</a>, which was drawn up last week by Sunetra Gupta of Oxford University, Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University, and Martin Kulldorff of Harvard University.It has been signed by scientists and health experts across the world, but it has also drawn widespread criticism from public-health officials.Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious-disease expert on the White House coronavirus task force, takes an opposite view of the virus, urging drastic action to limit its spread.The director-general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/herd-immunity-unethical-tackle-the-pandemic-says-who-chief-2020-10">said Tuesday</a> that a herd-immunity approach was "scientifically and ethically problematic."The UK's health secretary, Matt Hancock, attacked the Great Barrington Declaration by name <a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2020-10-13/debates/1081EDA2-9232-4C9E-9B01-4D5879390AAF/PublicHealthCoronavirusRegulations">in Parliament on Tuesday</a> and said it was based on flawed information.The UK broadcaster <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-dr-johnny-bananas-and-dr-person-fakename-among-medical-signatories-on-herd-immunity-open-letter-12099947">Sky News</a> last week found that some of the signatories on the document, which is open, allowing anyone to sign it in support, had used fake names, including "Dr. Person Fakename" and "Dr. Johnny Bananas."The declaration argues that most restrictions meant to limit the virus' spread are having a devastating impact on public health and should be immediately lifted for all but the most vulnerable.Since its release last Thursday, the declaration has been criticized in an <a href="https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-barrington-declaration-an-open-letter-arguing-against-lockdown-policies-and-for-focused-protection/">open letter</a> by other experts, who say there is no convincing evidence that high levels of immunity are achievable without a vaccine.They noted that shielding the vulnerable has proved difficult and that a much higher proportion of the population than the elderly are at risk of long-term complications from the disease.Christina Pagel, the director of University College London's Clinical Operational Research Unit, on Twitter noted that the herd-immunity approach was rejected by most of the world's top public-health bodies. She said those advocating it were breaking with scientific consensus.President <keyword id="6354484" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Donald-Trump">Donald Trump</keyword> has been accused throughout the pandemic of ignoring the advice of scientists and public-health officials, rapidly pushing for the US economy to reopen, hosting packed campaign events, and offering limited support for public-health measures.Olivia Troye, a former official on the White House coronavirus task force, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ex-pence-aide-trump-officials-wanted-end-coronavirus-task-force-2020-9">has said the president's</a> approach is guided more by concern for reelection than by concern for human life.In March the Trump administration adopted a suppression strategy, advocating a series of stringent lockdown measures to slow the spread of COVID-19, after a study by experts at Imperial College London found that a failure to do so could result in the deaths of 2.2 million Americans.In a recent shake-up Trump appointed Dr. <keyword id="9752857" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="scott-atlas">Scott Atlas</keyword>, a Stanford expert in public health but not infectious diseases, as an advisor to the White House on the coronavirus.In a recent interview with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/scott-atlas-hits-back-critics-questioning-science-fauci-redfield-2020-10">Business Insider, Atlas said</a> he did not advocate herd immunity, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-adviser-is-pushing-white-house-to-adopt-herd-immunity-2020-8">after The Washington Post</a> reported that this was the approach he had advised Trump to adopt.The unnamed White House officials in the media briefing said the declaration vindicated Trump's approach of shielding the vulnerable while encouraging society to reopen.A <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-precautions/older-adults.html">Centers for Disease Control and Prevention bulletin most recently updated in September</a> says that eight in 10 people who have died with COVID-19 in the US are over 65, the age group that is considered at most risk from the disease and would be shielded under a herd-immunity strategy.The White House did not immediately reply to a request for comment from Business Insider.

The White House is embracing a 'herd immunity' strategy that would allow COVID-19 to spread freely and is widely disputed by scientists

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The <keyword id="6356037" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="white-house">White House</keyword> has <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-briefs-great-barrington-disputed-science-2020-10">propped up a document</a> from a libertarian think tank called "The Great Barrington Declaration" this week.</li><li>The declaration proposes an end to <keyword id="8763838" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="covid-19">COVID-19</keyword> restrictions: allowing "those who are at minimal risk of death" to "live their lives normally" and get infected, in the hopes that the US and UK might develop <keyword id="2147226" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="herd-immunity">herd immunity</keyword> against the <keyword id="1754604" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="coronavirus">coronavirus</keyword>.</li><li>But that argument creates a false dichotomy between lockdowns and letting the virus spread unchecked. </li><li>One projection suggests attempting herd immunity could lead to 640,000 additional deaths by February 2023.</li><li>Thousands of other experts have also spoken out against the declaration, and on Wednesday they drafted <a href="https://www.johnsnowmemo.com/">their own counter-memo</a>.</li></ul>The White House is applauding a new document drawn up earlier this month at <a href="https://www.aier.org/about/">a libertarian think tank</a> in small-town Massachusetts, which falls neatly in line with the Trump Administration's own coronavirus plan: reopen, reopen, reopen.The letter, <a href="https://gbdeclaration.org/">called the Great Barrington Declaration</a> (named after the 7,000 person Massachusetts town where it was drafted) was written by three scientists from Oxford, Stanford, and Harvard Universities, who lament the effect of the pandemic — and strategies to mitigate it — on society.The declaration's bottom line: Most people should go out and live life as if the virus does not exist, while at the same time "better protecting those who are at highest risk" of dying or getting sick from the virus. (The document <a href="https://www.aier.org/article/the-great-barrington-declaration-is-not-saying-lock-up-grandma/">does not explicitly say how</a>, exactly, they would go about protecting high-risk people from the virus.The Barrington group calls this idea "focused protection," and it's one the White House has long touted. Many of the concerns in the declaration about the fallout from COVID-19 lockdowns are real, including "lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental <keyword id="6354750" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="health">health</keyword>."But most public health experts around the world agree that the scientists' stated plan is both shortsighted and deadly.The Infectious Diseases Society of America, an association of more than 12,000 disease scientists and doctors across the country, <a href="https://www.idsociety.org/news--publications-new/articles/2020/herd-immunity-is-not-an-answer-to-a-pandemic/">released a statement on Wednesday</a> calling the Barrington plan "inappropriate, irresponsible and ill-informed."There is no safe way to completely reopen every school and every business while properly shielding people from death and disease until you get the number of cases down in a population to very low levels, as South Korea has done, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-south-korea-tech-contact-tracing-testing-fight-covid-19-2020-5">by testing, tracing, and distancing</a>. Trying to circumvent that critical public health work — by instead letting people rush out and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/who-we-are-nowhere-close-to-herd-immunity-needed-coronavirus-2020-8">get infected</a> — is an unprecedented public health strategy, and one that for this particular virus, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-call-herd-immunity-sweden-experiment-coronavirus-not-working-2020-5">would not work anyway</a>.The resulting "death toll would be enormous and totally unacceptable," Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/matthew-mcconaughey-grills-dr-anthony-fauci-instagram-interview/story?id=72363359">told actor Matthew McConaughey</a> in August. Even with that reality on the table, nearly <a href="https://gbdeclaration.org/view-signatures/">half a million names</a> have signed onto the declaration, which has been translated into 22 languages. <h2>Herd immunity isn't what the declaration says it is</h2><div type="image" title="Johnson &amp; Johnson coronavirus vaccine clinical trial, volunteer dosed with experimental COVID-19 vaccine" height="4015" width="5354" msid="78684859" hostid="261"></div>Pursuing herd immunity to the coronavirus through natural infections is, in a word, impractical.About 0.5% of the world's population has been exposed to the virus so far. We have a long way to go to hit even some of the lowest posited herd immunity thresholds, which would require <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-covid-19-herd-immunity-2020-4">50% (or more) of the population to be exposed</a>. But the Barrington declaration instead states that "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."Public health experts largely agree that's not what herd immunity actually is. "Herd immunity is achieved by protecting people from a virus, not by exposing them to it," World Health Organization director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Monday. "Never in the history of public health has herd immunity been used as a strategy for responding to an outbreak, let alone a pandemic. It's scientifically and ethically problematic.""Achieving herd immunity without a vaccine is a recipe for carnage," Gregg Gonsalves, an <a href="https://twitter.com/gregggonsalves/status/1315755703223676930" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">epidemiologist at Yale School of Public Health</a>, tweeted Wednesday.It's something that health experts have stressed as <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/herd-immunity-is-a-deadly-non-strategy-2020-9">being deadly</a> and unethical: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/herd-immunity-unethical-tackle-the-pandemic-says-who-chief-2020-10">people are not herds of cattle</a> to be culled in order to boost our collective immunity. Herd immunity is, instead, most often achieved by vaccinating a population."I think we need to be really careful when we use terms in this way around natural infections in humans, because it can lead to a very brutal arithmetic which does not put people, and life, and suffering at the center of that equation," the WHO's Mike Ryan <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/herd-immunity-few-people-have-had-the-coronavirus-who-2020-5">said in May</a>. A growing number of reinfection cases also suggest coronavirus immunity is not iron-clad. If we let the pandemic rage through unvaccinated populations like a wildfire, we could be staring down another five or six years like 2020 peppered with peaks, dips, and waves of deadly infections."Most people who are infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 develop an immune response within the first few weeks, but we don't know how strong or lasting that immune response is, or how it differs for different people," Tedros said. <div type="image" title="Houston hospitals covid 19 " height="1335" width="2000" msid="78684862" hostid="261"></div><h2>The plan touted by the Great Barrington Declaration could result in 155 million new COVID-19 infections in the US</h2>So far, more than 216,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, and 7.8 million — less than 3% of the country's population — have been infected. In order to reach some semblance of herd immunity through natural infections, the US could be staring down another 155 million cases, give or take. <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewE_Dunn/status/1316739266295345152">One projection suggests</a> attempting herd immunity in the country would result in 640,000 deaths by February 2023."That's the reason why we're against saying, 'Let it fly. Let everybody get infected and we'll be fine.' That's a bad idea," Fauci said in August. What's more, the very nature of the coronavirus — which often spreads via silent, asymptomatic carriers and takes between <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-incubation-period-who-trump-exposed-2020-10">two and 14 days to incubate</a>, during which time people can unknowingly expose others to their infection — makes "shielding the vulnerable," as these declaration authors suggest, impossible.Young people who return to their pre-pandemic lives can't guarantee they won't bring the virus home to their parents, especially since some <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rapid-coronavirus-tests-dont-prevent-outbreaks-white-house-2020-10">rapid COVID tests</a> may only pick up about 70% to 80% of infections, and can produce false negatives.Letting the virus run rampant, even amid younger populations who are, broadly speaking, at lower risk for severe cases, risks overwhelming our healthcare system. Lots of young Americans also have <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-coronavirus-death-count-underlying-conditions-2020-9">comorbidities</a> like obesity and diabetes that put them at <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-can-cause-heart-infections-2020-3">higher risk of developing severe cases</a>."We don't have a COVID-19 vaccine yet, nor a more general use antiviral treatment," virologist Julian Tang from the University of Leicester said <a href="https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-barrington-declaration-an-open-letter-arguing-against-lockdown-policies-and-for-focused-protection/">in a criticism</a> of the Barrington plan. "Without these anti-COVID-19 'tools', I cannot see how they will achieve this 'Focused Protection' for these vulnerable groups in any practical, reliable or safe way."<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-coronavirus-lockdowns-compared-to-china-europe-2020-6">One June study</a> suggested the US's coronavirus restrictions <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2404-8">prevented about 60 million infections</a> from March 3 to April 6 alone.We already have evidence already that letting the virus run amok in a society doesn't result in herd immunity.At a recent Senate hearing, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul claimed New York City, which got gobsmacked by the US's first wave, <a href="https://www.vox.com/21451282/herd-immunity-explained-covid-19-pandemic">controlled its outbreak by pursuing this strategy</a>.But Dr. Fauci was quick to correct Paul in the hearing: "If you believe 22% is herd immunity, I believe you're alone in that."More than <a href="https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page">23,900 people in New York City</a> are dead from COVID-19. <div type="image" title="south korea covid testing" height="1464" width="2200" msid="78684869" hostid="261"></div><h2>There are non-herd immunity strategies that would help the world get back to normal</h2>In the US, testing efforts have been slow, and even now, the rapid testing being rolled out in nursing homes across the country is so riddled with errors that <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-09/rapid-covid-test-effort-stumbles-over-risk-of-false-positives?srnd=prognosis">some states are pushing to halt it</a> altogether.The country hasn't yet pursued the tried and true virus-fighting strategies that many other countries have used successfully: widespread testing, contact tracing, and universal mask-wearing. The Barrington authors have embraced a false dichotomy that lets our public health system off the hook. Controlling the pandemic isn't a choice between "lockdowns" and letting the virus rage to achieve herd immunity.Countries that crushed the virus, like <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-south-korea-controlled-its-coronavirus-outbreak-2020-4">South Korea</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/life-in-new-zealand-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic-2020-8">New Zealand</a>, didn't pursue either of those strategies. They tested, contact traced, and shared information with their citizens that helped those citizens minimize the outbreak."We've got to get a testing regime and a contact tracing regime in place, we've got to get the PPE available, and widespread, and we did none of that — and that's the problem," public health expert Ezekiel Emanuel told Insider, after he published a research letter in the <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2771841">medical journal JAMA earlier this week</a> showing how inferior the public health response to the virus was in the US compared to many other rich countries. "Schools can open, and lots of other things can happen when the transmission rate is very, very low," he said. "And that's what we failed to do."<h2>The scientists who wrote the declaration haven't published any peer-reviewed studies about COVID-19</h2>The Barrington writers met at the libertarian-minded American Institute for Economic Research think tank in early October to draft the document, which has <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/520961-white-house-officials-promote-herd-immunity-declaration-signed-by-fake">since amassed</a> hundreds of thousands of signatures (including some dubious signers, such as Dr. I.P. Freely, Dr. Person Fakename, and Dr. Johnny Bananas, <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/coronvairus-dr-johnny-bananas-and-dr-person-fakename-among-medical-signatories-on-herd-immunity-open-letter-12099947">as Sky News</a> reported.) The three writers all hail from prestigious universities. Even so, none of these health policy experts — Martin Kulldorff (Harvard University), Sunetra Gupta (University of Oxford), and Jay Bhattacharya (Stanford University) — have published any peer-reviewed studies about the coronavirus.Bhattacharya did, however, co-author a pre-print (preliminary research that has not been vetted by other scientists), <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v2" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">study in April</a> that used antibody testing to conclude a majority of California COVID-19 cases had gone unreported. Bhattacharya's wife recruited participants for that study via an email that falsely claimed an "FDA approved" test would tell them if they were immune and could "return to work without fear," <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/stanford-coronavirus-study-bhattacharya-email" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">BuzzFeed News</a> reported.<div type="image" title="Kulldorff_gupta_bhattacharya great barrington declaration" height="1001" width="2048" msid="78684875" hostid="261"></div>Perhaps the greatest testament to how strongly public health experts condemn The Great Barrington Declaration is that they have taken the time to write a whole separate document, <a href="https://www.johnsnowmemo.com/">The John Snow Memorandum</a>, published in leading medical journal <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32153-X/fulltext">The Lancet on Wednesday</a>. Already, nearly 600 top-tier scientists, virologists, vaccine experts, medics, researchers, disease modelers, and public health professors have added their names to that memo. "The evidence is very clear," the memo says. "Controlling community spread of COVID-19 is the best way to protect our societies and economies until safe and effective vaccines and therapeutics arrive within the coming months."

The White House-backed 'Great Barrington Declaration' calling for herd immunity wouldn't just fail — it could lead to 640,000 deaths

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="11976521" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="anthony-fauci" source="Orion">Anthony Fauci</keyword> blasted <keyword id="11979041" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="rand-paul" source="Orion">Rand Paul</keyword> for attacking him for political gain.</li><li>Paul and Fauci have a history of contentious exchanges over how Fauci is trying to help manage the pandemic.</li></ul>Dr. Anthony Fauci tore into Sen. Rand Paul on Tuesday, arguing that the Kentucky Republican's attacks on Fauci's role in the pandemic response are designed for political gain and exacerbate death threats against him and his family."What happens when [Paul] gets out and accuses me of things that are completely untrue is that it kindles the crazies out there and I have threats upon my life, harassment of my family and my children with obscene phone calls because people are lying about me," Fauci said at the end of a heated back-and-forth.Fauci pointed out that a California man was arrested in Iowa late last year and according to police told officers that he was on his way to Washington to kill Fauci, Biden, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Officers, <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime-and-courts/2021/12/30/man-arrested-iowa-alleged-hit-list-joe-biden-bill-clinton-tiktok-qanon/9050360002/">The Des Moines Register reported</a>, said the man claimed he was "the only person remaining who can free the United States of evil."Fauci and Paul, who is an ophthalmologist, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fauci-rand-paul-you-do-not-know-what-talking-about-2021-7">have tangled repeatedly in the past</a> with each interaction seemingly getting more hostile and personal. Paul and other Republicans have lit into Fauci for months and called for his firing, a point Fauci illustrated by holding a printout from Paul's campaign website."You have politically attacked your colleagues and in a politically reprehensible way you have attacked their reputations," Paul said talking over Fauci before Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate's health committee, cut them off.Paul responded after the hearing by tweeting a screenshot of Fauci holding up the print-out.In their first tussle of 2022, Paul<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/06/03/alleged-fauci-smoking-gun-emails/"> largely rehashed his past criticism</a> of Biden's top health advisor, pointing to Fauci's previously released emails.In this case, Paul referenced an exchange Fauci had with National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins about pushing back on the Great Barrington Declaration, an October 2020 effort by three scientists and a libertarian think tank to push for allowing <keyword id="11893994" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="covid-19" source="Orion">COVID-19</keyword> to spread largely unabated among healthy people while trying to keep more vulnerable Americans from contracting the virus. The declaration,<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/10/14/herd-immunity-barrington-declaration/"> The Washington Post reported</a>, rejected the consensus view of health experts who feared millions of Americans would die if the Trump White House followed the recommentdaion given that the debate occurred before a vaccine was ready.Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford professor and one of three involved in drafting the declaration, previously called Collins' email <a href="https://twitter.com/DrJBhattacharya/status/1471986453823459330?s=20">a "propaganda attack by my own government."</a>

Dr. Fauci confronts Rand Paul, says the senator's attacks 'kindle the crazies' and lead to death threats

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Dr. Deborah Birx raised alarms about Trump's COVID-19 strategy, while publicly covering for it.</li><li>New emails obtained by Congress show Birx objecting to the herd-immunity approach.</li></ul>Dr. Deborah Birx, the former White House coronavirus-response coordinator, said the Trump White House's approach to COVID-19 would contribute to an "unacceptable death toll," especially among people of color, while publicly giving the strategy "cover," <a href="https://coronavirus.house.gov/sites/democrats.coronavirus.house.gov/files/CombinedDec2021NewEvidence.pdf">newly published emails show</a>.On August 24, 2020, Birx pulled out of a planned White House roundtable featuring a small group of outside medical experts advising the White House, according to new <a href="https://coronavirus.house.gov/sites/democrats.coronavirus.house.gov/files/CombinedDec2021NewEvidence.pdf">emails obtained by the House select subcommittee</a> on the <keyword id="11893194" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="coronavirus" source="Orion">coronavirus</keyword>.The group included people who publicly advocated for limiting coronavirus restrictions and pushed <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/reasons-why-herd-immunity-is-a-bad-idea-for-covid-2020-11">a herd-immunity strategy</a> that, in theory, would have focused on protections for the most vulnerable populations, like older people, and limited mitigation strategies (like masking and social distancing) for the rest of the population. Trump's prepared remarks for the roundtable said that "unending lockdowns" were "not a <keyword id="11896083" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="science" source="Orion">science</keyword> based approach — and it would inflict grave harm on our children and our entire society." On the morning of August 25, 2020, Birx wrote an email to Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff at the time, Marc Short, explaining why she couldn't be part of the roundtable."I can't be part of this with these people who believe in herd immunity and believe we are fine with only protecting the 1.5M Americans in LTCF and not the 80M+ with co-morbidities in the populations included in the unacceptable death toll among Native Americans, Hispanics, and Blacks," Birx wrote to Short, referring to long-term-care facilities as LTCF. Most experts said at the time that isolating vulnerable people from the rest of the population was not feasible because of the highly transmissible nature of COVID-19 and that getting to herd immunity through infecting most of the population (before the rollout of vaccines) <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/herd-immunity-plan-great-barrington-declaration-wont-work-2020-10">would lead to a staggering number of deaths</a>. The higher rates of transmission would have also made it exceedingly hard to shield the most vulnerable.Birx said the death toll could rise to 500,000 by the time the US had a vaccine, adding: "Without masks and social distancing in public and homes we end up with twice as many deaths — we are a very unhealthy nation with a lot of obesity etc."The group at the August 25, 2020, White House roundtable included Dr. Scott Atlas and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford, the Harvard biostatistician Martin Kulldorff, Dr. Cody Meissner of Tufts University, and Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who was at the University of California, Los Angeles, at the time and <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/09/23/metro/six-things-you-should-know-about-dr-joseph-ladapo-floridas-new-surgeon-general-his-controversial-views-vaccines-mandates/">is now Florida's surgeon general</a>."These are people who believe that all curves are predetermined and mitigation is irrelevant — they are a fringe group without grounding in epidemics, public health, or on the ground common sense experience," Birx said of the group. Birx then said she was "happy to go out of town or whatever gives the WH cover for Weds," adding that she could do an event in Annapolis, Maryland, with Gov. Larry Hogan and perhaps Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious-disease expert and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Later that morning, Birx forwarded the email she sent to Short to Fauci, then-Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn, and then-Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield with the added message: "I just can't."About the same time in 2020, Birx left the Washington, DC, area on a nationwide tour to promote COVID-19-mitigation strategies around the country. October 2020 emails <a href="https://coronavirus.house.gov/sites/democrats.coronavirus.house.gov/files/CombinedDec2021NewEvidence.pdf">in the same batch obtained by the select committee</a> included discussions between Fauci and Dr. Francis Collins, now the outgoing National Institutes of Health director, on how they could best refute the claims of those <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/great-barrington-declaration-herd-immunity-scientific-divide">pushing the herd-immunity strategy</a> advocated <a href="https://gbdeclaration.org/">in the Great Barrington Declaration</a>.Collins called the declaration a "proposal from the three fringe epidemiologists," adding: "There needs to be a quick and devastating published take down of its premises."

'I just can't': Dr. Deborah Birx privately blasted the Trump White House's COVID-19 strategy while publicly giving it 'cover,' emails show

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The US's horrifying winter <keyword id="1754604" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="coronavirus">coronavirus</keyword> surge offers a peek at the consequences of a no-lockdown, mass-infection approach.</li><li>Some public figures — including <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-promoted-coronavirus-misinformation-then-tested-positive-2020-11">Elon Musk</a> and Scott Atlas — have advocated for protecting vulnerable people while encouraging everyone else to resume life as normal.</li><li>Now they're either silent, deny they ever supported a "<keyword id="2147226" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="herd-immunity">herd immunity</keyword>" strategy, or claim the US is still in lockdown.</li></ul>Earlier in the pandemic, a handful of public figures and government officials pushed an approach that became known as "herd immunity." According to that line of thought, letting the virus spread relatively unchecked through the majority of a population should build enough immunity to slow transmission, without disrupting normal life or hurting businesses.But most experts <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/herd-immunity-is-a-deadly-non-strategy-2020-9">cautioned against it</a>."Herd immunity is not a strategy or a solution. It is surrender to a preventable virus," Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, said <a href="https://twitter.com/mlipsitch/status/1300437071312687104">on Twitter</a> in August.Yet the US, due to the patchwork nature of its coronavirus response and a lack of government regulation to slow the virus' spread, seems to have pursued a version of this strategy by default. Even though the cold-weather coronavirus surge has been far more severe than the one that prompted lockdowns in the spring, most states have been allowing residents to dine indoors, go to a gym or salon, and gather at places of worship throughout fall and winter.California and North Carolina are the only states with stay-at-home orders, according to a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/states-reopen-map-coronavirus.html?action=click&amp;module=RelatedLinks&amp;pgtype=Article=Article">New York Times</a> tracker. There are no mask requirements in 10 states, and another six only require masks in some businesses or counties. Amid these lax policies, air travel for the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/thanksgiving-coronavirus-death-surge-is-here-2020-12">Thanksgiving</a>, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-air-travel-reached-post-march-peak-day-christmas-n1252339">Christmas</a>, and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/03/covid-us-air-travel-hits-pandemic-high-over-new-years.html">New Year</a> holidays reached levels not seen since the pandemic began.<div type="image" title="miami airport christmas travel" height="2603" width="3482" msid="80424327" hostid="261"></div>And now we are seeing the consequences.The US has reached its worst pandemic peak yet. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-passes-400k-coronavirus-deaths-stunted-vaccination-rollout-2021-1">More than 411,000 people have died</a>. Los Angeles County had to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/la-county-air-quality-regulations-suspended-cremation-backlog-2021-1">suspend air-quality regulations</a> that limit the number of cremations each month because so many people are dying. Hospitals are filling to capacity in <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/news/2021/01/19/utah-hospitals-again/">Utah</a>, <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-health/2021/01/21/arizona-coronavirus-jan-21-update-9-398-new-cases-244-new-known-deaths/4244400001/">Arizona</a>, <a href="https://scdhec.gov/covid19/hospital-bed-capacity-covid-19">South Carolina</a>, <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2021/01/22/coronavirus-texas-hospital-capacity/">Texas</a>, and <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/coronavirus/at-covid-front-lines-the-unimaginable-becomes-reality/MTXOTYVPIRDNRAQL3VGWWAAH2I/">Georgia</a>, leaving crowded ER waiting rooms.Those who advocated for a no-lockdown, mass-infection strategy have now either fallen silent, denied that they ever supported herd immunity, or distanced themselves from the country's recent approach to the pandemic. That includes Sweden's lead epidemiologist, the authors of the controversial Great Barrington Declaration, and Elon Musk.<h2>2 champions of mass infection: Elon Musk and Scott Atlas</h2>"Herd immunity" is a a misnomer, since herd immunity is everyone's eventual goal. The question is the way to get there: by mass vaccination or mass infection.<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-promoted-coronavirus-misinformation-then-tested-positive-2020-11">Elon Musk</a> was one of the most prominent advocates for the latter route."Essentially, the right thing to do would be to not have done a lockdown for the whole country but to have, I think, anyone who's at risk should be quarantined until the storm passes," Musk said in a September interview on the podcast "Sway."<div type="image" title="elon musk confused skeptical thumbs grimace" height="2794" width="3726" msid="80424332" hostid="261"></div>When interviewer Kara Swisher pointed out that many people would perish in that approach, Musk responded: "Everybody dies."Musk did not respond to a request for comment on his previous statements, and he hasn't made any public statements about the coronavirus since <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-may-prevent-elon-musk-from-seeing-nasa-astronaut-launch-2020-11">he tested positive for it</a> (and called rapid testing "extremely bogus") in November. But last week, <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/01/19/nation/elon-musk-donates-5m-coronavirus-research-boston/">The Boston Globe</a> reported that Musk had donated $5 million to two coronavirus researchers through his foundation.Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist who served as a White House coronavirus advisor for about four months, has also argued that the best approach to the pandemic would be to isolate vulnerable populations - the elderly and immunocompromised - and let everybody else go about their business.He laid out this strategy in an October <a href="https://unherd.com/thepost/scott-atlas-im-disgusted-and-dismayed/">interview</a> with UnHerd, at which point he said population immunity might be a "secondary gain" of his ideal approach. But before he took the White House job, he talked about herd immunity through mass infection as a goal in itself."In the absence of immunization, society needs circulation of the virus, assuming high-risk people can be isolated," Atlas wrote in <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/492514-reentry-after-the-panic-paying-the-health-price-of-extreme-isolation">an op-ed for The Hill</a> in April. "It is very possible that whole-population isolation prevented natural herd immunity from developing."<div type="image" title="GettyImages scott atlas" height="683" width="910" msid="80424333" hostid="261"></div>After Atlas joined the White House coronavirus task force in August, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-coronavirus-scott-atlas-herd-immunity/2020/08/30/925e68fe-e93b-11ea-970a-64c73a1c2392_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-banner-low_virustrump-7am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans">The Washington Post</a> reported that he was pushing behind the scenes for the US to embrace herd immunity - a charge he says is untrue."I firmly deny the false accusations that, as a special advisor to the President, I advocated at any time for 'herd immunity' via letting the infection spread as a scientific approach to the pandemic," Atlas told Insider. "All policy considerations I recommended to the President were designed to reduce both the spread of the virus to the vulnerable and the structural harms to those impacted the most - the poor and working class of America."<h2>The anti-lockdown manifesto</h2>However, Atlas <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/white-house-touts-document-calling-for-herd-immunity-approach-to-covid-19-crisis-11603051550">praised</a> the Great Barrington Declaration, a document that argued for "focused protection" - isolating and sheltering vulnerable populations, like the elderly, while letting everyone else go about their normal lives."For people who are under, let's say, 60 or 50, the lockdown harms are mentally and physically worse than COVID," Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University and one of the three authors of the declaration, said in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tsUTAWBJ9M">debate</a> with Lipsitch in November.Though the declaration's website claims that more than 13,000 medical and public-health scientists have signed it, its publication in October drew widespread criticism from many other public-health experts. In an <a href="https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-barrington-declaration-an-open-letter-arguing-against-lockdown-policies-and-for-focused-protection/">open letter</a> and the <a href="https://www.johnsnowmemo.com/">John Snow Memorandum</a>, experts argued that there is no evidence that herd immunity can be reached through natural infection. What's more, they said, "focused protection" isn't realistic, since it's unclear how governments would single out vulnerable people and separate them from the rest of society.Plus, young and healthy people can still have severe, long-lasting coronavirus symptoms, and the long-term effects of such widespread sickness can't be known.<div type="image" title="Kulldorff_gupta_bhattacharya great barrington declaration" height="804" width="1072" msid="80424334" hostid="261"></div>The authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, however, stand by it and do not think the US pursued their recommended strategy, intentionally or accidentally."With the exception of a small handful of states, the US has followed a lockdown policy," Bhattacharya told Insider in late December. "The primary class of people that does not believe we are in lockdown are the rich, who can afford to stay at home, work remotely without threat of losing their job, and pay to not experience the harms of the lockdowns."<h2>The Sweden strategy</h2>In November, Bhattacharya pointed to Sweden as a good example of herd immunity done right. The approach there, he said, was not simply "let it rip," since the country aimed to protect the vulnerable while avoiding lockdowns.Indeed, Swedish state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell directed a response to the virus that did not mandate lockdowns, masks, or social distancing. He <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a2b4c18c-a5e8-4edc-8047-ade4a82a548d">claimed</a> that this no-lockdown approach would produce <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-coronavirus-chief-immunity-levels-studies-contradict-2020-8">high rates of immunity</a>, which would later protect the Swedish population from new COVID-19 surges.Tegnell denied that herd immunity was the strategic goal, but whatever the terminology, his theory has proven wrong.<div type="image" title="Anders Tegnell" height="2402" width="3202" msid="80424335" hostid="261"></div>Sweden did not escape a winter surge of coronavirus cases, as Tegnell predicted. On January 8, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-passes-law-to-allow-closures-amid-high-death-toll-2021-1">the Swedish parliament passed a new law</a> allowing the government to institute nationwide lockdown measures. The country's death toll stands at nearly 10,800 - several times higher than in neighboring Norway and Finland, where 543 and 633 people have died, according to the <a href="https://covid19.who.int/region/euro/country/se">World Health Organization</a>. In December, Tegnell told Insider that he holds the same position that he repeated regularly when Sweden remained open: "The agency or me never supported the herd immunity approach as a strategy."Susie Neilson contributed reporting.

The US is seeing the consequences of the coronavirus' relatively unchecked spread. 3 people who supported that strategy now say they never did.

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="10879" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="YouTube">YouTube</keyword> removed a video in which Gov. <keyword id="2947172" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Ron-DeSantis">Ron DeSantis</keyword> of Florida questions masks for kids. </li><li>The video violated policies on debunked <keyword id="1754604" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="coronavirus">coronavirus</keyword> claims, the platform <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/youtube-purges-florida-governor-video-over-claims-children-dont-need-to-wear-masks/">told The Wrap</a>.</li><li>DeSantis opposes many anti-COVID-19 measures and has clashed with the Biden administration.</li></ul>YouTube removed a video in which Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and a group that has opposed measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 questioned whether it's necessary for children to wear masks.A spokesman for YouTube told <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/youtube-purges-florida-governor-video-over-claims-children-dont-need-to-wear-masks/">The Wrap that the video</a> had been removed because it "included content that contradicts the consensus of local and global health authorities" on whether masks work.The video shows a roundtable meeting of DeSantis and a group of public-health experts who've questioned the effectiveness of lockdown restrictions and other measures to slow the coronavirus' spread.The group outlined its views <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/herd-immunity-plan-great-barrington-declaration-wont-work-2020-10">in a debunked document last year called the Great Barrington Declaration</a>.The video in question <a href="https://www.aier.org/article/great-barrington-declaration-scientists-with-gov-desantis-in-florida/">remains live on the site of The American Institute for Economic Research</a>, which organized the declaration.Among the people in the video is Scott Atlas, the former advisor to President Donald Trump; the Oxford epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta; the Harvard professor Martin Kulldorff; and Stanford University's Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. All are prominent lockdown skeptics.DeSantis in the video asked whether it was necessary for kids to wear masks to slow the spread of infections. Members of the roundtable said it was not."There's no scientific rationale or logic to have children wear masks in schools," Atlas said at one point.DeSantis and the panel then went on to question the necessity of masks, and mask mandates, more broadly.YouTube and other social-media sites have introduced new policies during the coronavirus pandemic to limit the spread of misinformation about COVID-19 and measures required to counter it.<a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-children-and-masks-related-to-covid-19">The World Health Organization says</a> only children under 5 should not have to wear masks. It says those ages 6 to 11 should wear them if there are high transmission rates in the local area and children ages 12 and over should wear them in the same conditions as adults.<a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/children/symptoms.html">The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a> says children can get infected with the coronavirus and transmit it to others, hence the need for masks in schools. It says that the risk of them getting seriously ill is smaller.DeSantis has opposed many of the restrictions to slow the spread of COVID-19 in Florida, which has made him a rising star <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ron-desantis-2024-president-biden-florida-governor-2022-covid-plan-2021-2">among the pro-Trump wing of the GOP and led to be him being tipped</a> as a possible presidential candidate.DeSantis has clashed repeatedly with Biden administration officials over Florida's unlocking.In March he <a href="https://www.orlandosentinel.com/politics/os-ne-desantis-vaccines-brevard-biden-20210312-hpcgoyp7zvbtfacc7wv67gr2t4-story.html">described statements by President Joe Biden that lockdowns may have to return if the pandemic worsened "insane,"</a> concluding that "I am not going to let him lock down Florida."On Thursday he <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/florida-sue-cdc-cruise-industry-pause-2021-4">said he would sue the CDC in</a> the hope of ending its pause on cruise ships operating from the US.

YouTube removed a video where Gov. Ron DeSantis questioned whether kids should wear masks

<ul class="summary-list"><li>President-elect <keyword id="99719" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Joe-Biden">Joe Biden</keyword> met with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-covid-19-advisory-board-coronavirus-panel-vivek-murthy-2020-11">13 members of his newly formed COVID-19 advisory board</a> on Monday.</li><li>At least 10 of those members have served the federal government before.</li><li>Several board members helped guide the US through past epidemics, including AIDS, Ebola, and Zika. </li></ul>As US <keyword id="1754604" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="coronavirus">coronavirus</keyword> cases topped 10 million on Monday, President-elect Joe Biden held a meeting with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-covid-19-advisory-board-coronavirus-panel-vivek-murthy-2020-11">13 members of his newly formed COVID-19 advisory board</a>. The group will be instrumental in determining the federal pandemic response under the Biden-Harris administration.At least 10 of Biden's board members have served the federal government under a previous presidential administration.The board's co-chairs are Vivek Murthy, who was the surgeon general under the Obama administration; David Kessler, the Food and Drug Administration commissioner under Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush; and Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, the associate dean for health equity research at the Yale School of Medicine. As surgeon general, Murthy saw the US through several public-health crises, including the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic and the 2015-2016 Zika epidemic. As FDA commissioner, Kessler led that agency's response to the HIV/AIDS crisis.Other board members include Dr. Atul Gawande, who was a senior advisor in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) during the Clinton era, and Dr. Michael Osterholm, an HHS advisor under George W. Bush. They're joined by Dr. Eric Goosby, who helped coordinate the federal government's HIV/AIDS response under four presidential administrations from the 1990s until 2013.Biden's team also consists of two former Trump administration officials. One is Dr. Luciana Borio, the FDA's former acting chief scientist, who spearheaded an effort to deliver speedier, more accessible flu vaccines. Borio also helped coordinate the national response to Ebola and Zika under President Obama. The second is Dr. Rick Bright, a former HHS official who resigned in October. Bright filed a whistleblower complaint in May about the Trump administration's mishandling of the pandemic, including its promotion of untested treatments like hydroxychloroquine."I am grateful for the opportunity to serve my country and rejoin the fight against COVID-19," Bright <a href="https://twitter.com/RickABright/status/1325868966754082823">tweeted Monday</a>. "With the leadership of President-elect Biden and VP-elect Harris, and their trust in <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword>, I have no doubt we'll be able to end the pandemic and save lives."<h2>Prioritizing testing and PPE</h2>Several officials on Biden's task force have been advising him since the Democratic primary in March. But when Biden takes office, the US outbreak will be far worse than it was when he became the nominee. Daily coronavirus cases have reached record highs on four consecutive days in November, and 44 states have seen daily case numbers rise in the last week. In the last month, average daily coronavirus cases in the US have doubled.<div type="image" title="biden face mask" height="2131" width="3197" msid="79140309" hostid="261"></div>"Dealing with the coronavirus pandemic is one of the most important battles our administration will face, and I will be informed by science and by experts," Biden said in a statement. "The advisory board will help shape my approach to managing the surge in reported infections; ensuring vaccines are safe, effective, and distributed efficiently, equitably, and free; and protecting at-risk populations."Several of Biden's board members have indicated a desire to deliver more ventilators and personal protective equipment to hospitals and ramp up coronavirus testing. They have also emphasized the need for consistent, science-based messaging about the importance of masks and social distancing."In the absence of a way to treat this virus or prevent this virus, the only thing we have is that we identify those who are infected, and we do that through widespread testing," Kessler <a href="https://www.fixinghealthcarepodcast.com/2020/06/15/episode-22-kessler/">told the Fixing Healthcare Podcast</a> in June.<h2>An uncertain future for <keyword id="6356037" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="white-house">White House</keyword> task force members</h2><div type="image" title="fauci" height="3463" width="5195" msid="79140310" hostid="261"></div>Biden hasn't said what will become of the existing <keyword id="8976893" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="White-House-Coronavirus-Task-Force">White House coronavirus task force</keyword> under his administration.Public-health experts have criticized the current group's inclusion of members without relevant scientific backgrounds, such as Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist. Atlas, who has advised the task force since August, has praised ideas described in the Great Barrington Declaration, which calls for a controversial herd-immunity strategy that would let the virus spread through the population. Atlas denies pushing for herd immunity, but he has advocated for <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/29/politics/atlas-desantis-testing-covid-florida/index.html">slowing down testing</a> and quickly reopening schools and businesses.Though President Trump hasn't conceded the election, public-health experts remain hopeful that the White House task force will <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/fauci-birx-biden-covid-task-force-1546056">coordinate a smooth transition with Biden's new advisory team</a>.Experts also say it's possible that at least one task force member — Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — could join Biden's team in January. "Naming Fauci to a Biden task force might anger Trump even further, to the point of removing Fauci from his post now, which I think would shake public confidence at a crucial point in the pandemic," Wendy Schiller-Kalunian, a professor of public and international affairs at Brown University, <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/fauci-birx-biden-covid-task-force-1546056">told Newsweek</a>.Biden had previously said Fauci would <a href="https://joebiden.com/beat-covid19/#">receive one of his first calls</a> as president-elect."We need a president who actually listens to experts like Dr. Fauci," Biden <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1323256294925455360">tweeted</a> just before Election Day.

Biden's coronavirus board is made up of former federal officials who oversaw past epidemics including AIDS, Ebola, and Zika

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">Lou Dematteis/REUTERSBookstore.</div></div></div>Independent bookstores across the country are becoming hubs of the left's resistance to President Donald Trump, organizing social justice readings and action groups, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/us/bookstores-stoke-trump-resistance-with-action-not-just-words.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus">hosting "pussyhat" knitting events</a>, and donating their proceeds to the ACLU. "A lot of people are saying, 'We've turned our store over to the revolution,'" Hannah Oliver Depp, who works at Word, a bookstore in New York and New Jersey, recently <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/us/bookstores-stoke-trump-resistance-with-action-not-just-words.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus">told The New York Times</a>. While larger chain stores, including Barnes &amp; Noble, serve a broad audience that falls across the political spectrum, indie bookstores are able to tailor their offerings to a smaller clientele, many of whom have become increasingly politically engaged since the election. <keyword id="6358883" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Politics">Politics</keyword> &amp; Prose, an independent bookstore in Washington, DC, <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=5&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjR9aqAkZPSAhXF0RQKHROWBtwQFggyMAQ&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2014%2F11%2F30%2Fus%2Fhonoring-small-business-obamas-go-book-shopping.html&amp;usg=AFQjCNFELvLDd8LyRLbsLKWp519CEc_W3A&amp;bvm=bv.147134024,d.amc">frequented by President Barack Obama</a>, has created a "Don't Give Up. Stand Up. Read Up" <a href="http://www.politics-prose.com/bookmark/don-t-give-stand-read">book display</a>, which features a selection of books "that promote political engagement and activism along with quite a few titles that try to explain the populist anger that has fueled Trump's rise to power," the store explained on its website. Political fiction and non-fiction alike, including classics like George Orwell's "1984" and John Steinbeck's "The Winter of Our Discontent," and new works, like J.D. Vance's "Hillbilly Elegy," have become best-sellers since the election. Many stores are <a href="http://bookweb.org/news/post-election-bookstores-offer-safe-spaces-communities-come-together-34972">promoting themselves as "safe spaces"</a> to talk about or escape politics through books. "In the aftermath of the election, many folks had their values and identities shaken to their very core, including me," Matt Keliher, owner of SubText Books in St. Paul, Minnesota, <a href="http://bookweb.org/news/post-election-bookstores-offer-safe-spaces-communities-come-together-34972">told the Bookselling This Week blog</a>. "They flocked to the bookstore in search of a community that shared their experience and perspective."Other stores are taking a more activist approach. Off the Beaten Path, a bookstore in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, <a href="http://bookweb.org/news/post-election-bookstores-offer-safe-spaces-communities-come-together-34972">hosted a political letter-writing event</a> a few days after the election, where community members discussed policy issues ranging from immigration to the environment and drafted messages to their elected officials. The store plans to make this event a regular occurrence. Still other booksellers have approached politics with humor. In November, a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/434847149875233/photos/a.469008116459136.122829.434847149875233/1501154866577784/?type=3&amp;theater">photo of a chalkboard</a> outside The Bookloft in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, reading, "Post apocalyptic fiction has been moved to our current affairs section," went viral on Facebook. Indie bookstores in the United States have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/26/arts/international/assessing-the-health-of-independent-bookshops.html">rebounded</a> substantially since the financial crisis, increasing in number by 27 percent between 2009 and 2015. The American Booksellers Association attributes this rise in demand to the demise of big box stores, like Borders, which <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/borders-stores-closing-2011-2">declared bankruptcy in 2011</a>, and Barnes &amp; Noble, which has closed hundreds of stores in recent years, as well as the "buy local" movement and urban renewal taking place in cities across the country. The surge in political engagement on the left could make independent bookstores even more relevant in coming years. The CEO of the Booksellers Association, Oren Teicher, asserted the role of bookstores in mending political divides in a November 9 statement."As citizens, attempting to comprehend what has occurred," he wrote, "all of us in the bookselling community have a special obligation - and opportunity - to foster communication and to help reconcile our communities." <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sanders-slams-cruz-refusing-say-healthcare-right-cnn-debate-obamacare-affordable-care-act-2017-2">'Access doesn't mean a damn thing': Sanders slams Cruz for refusing to say health care is a right for all Americans</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="14ZHRpOTE6Q7fy7FfV5mgRm_X3h6u0VI" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

You Searched For "great barrington declaration" and got 9 results

6 things to say when someone asks: 'Why can't we just go for herd immunity to end the coronavirus pandemic?'

Hilary Brueck,Aylin Woodward

The White House is embracing a 'herd immunity' strategy that would allow COVID-19 to spread freely and is widely disputed by scientists

Tom Porter

The White House-backed 'Great Barrington Declaration' calling for herd immunity wouldn't just fail — it could lead to 640,000 deaths

Hilary Brueck,Aylin Woodward

Dr. Fauci confronts Rand Paul, says the senator's attacks 'kindle the crazies' and lead to death threats

Brent D. Griffiths

'I just can't': Dr. Deborah Birx privately blasted the Trump White House's COVID-19 strategy while publicly giving it 'cover,' emails show

Grace Panetta

The US is seeing the consequences of the coronavirus' relatively unchecked spread. 3 people who supported that strategy now say they never did.

Morgan McFall-Johnsen

YouTube removed a video where Gov. Ron DeSantis questioned whether kids should wear masks

Tom Porter

Biden's coronavirus board is made up of former federal officials who oversaw past epidemics including AIDS, Ebola, and Zika

Aria Bendix

Independent bookstores are becoming centers of political resistance

Eliza Relman

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