Covid experts: there is another way Three eminent epidemiologists met in Massachusetts to plan a better response to the pandemic
BY SUNETRA GUPTA, JAY BHATTACHARYA AND MARTIN KULLDORFF
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.
Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.
Fortunately, our understanding of the virus is growing. We know that vulnerability to death from COVID-19 is more than a thousand-fold higher in the old and infirm than the young. Indeed, for children, COVID-19 is less dangerous than many other harms, including influenza.
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.
Adopting measures to protect the vulnerable should be the central aim of public health responses to COVID-19. By way of example, nursing homes should use staff with acquired immunity and perform frequent PCR testing of other staff and all visitors. Staff rotation should be minimized. Retired people living at home should have groceries and other essentials delivered to their home. When possible, they should meet family members outside rather than inside. A comprehensive and detailed list of measures, including approaches to multi-generational households, can be implemented, and is well within the scope and capability of public health professionals.
Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal. Simple hygiene measures, such as hand washing and staying home when sick should be practiced by everyone to reduce the herd immunity threshold. Schools and universities should be open for in-person teaching. Extracurricular activities, such as sports, should be resumed. Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home. Restaurants and other businesses should open. Arts, music, sport and other cultural activities should resume. People who are more at risk may participate if they wish, while society as a whole enjoys the protection conferred upon the vulnerable by those who have built up herd immunity.
Dr Sunetra Gupta is a professor at Oxford University, an epidemiologist with expertise in immunology, vaccine development, and mathematical modelling of infectious diseases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunetra_Gupta
WHO condemn lockdowns and say they 'only make poor people poorer' A COVID-19 envoy appointed by Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has appealed to world leaders to stop resorting to lockdown to control the pandemic.
Dr David Nabarro, who has spent his career working for the WHO and the United Nations (UN), seems to have marked a departure from the global health body's early stance on the COVID-19 pandemic, warning about the economic and social consequences of lockdown as a means of controlling the spread of the disease.
On Sunday, Dr Nabarro appealed to world leaders to stop 'using lockdowns as your primary control method', insisting that such drastic measures can have a dire impact on global poverty rates. Speaking to The Spectator, the British doctor stated: 'We in the World Health Organisation do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus. The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganise, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we'd rather not do it.'
Dr Nabarro went on to say that developing economies had been indirectly affected by lockdown measures, adding: 'Just look at what's happened to the tourism industry in the Caribbean, for example, or in the Pacific because people aren't taking their holidays. Look what's happened to smallholder farmers all over the world - look what's happening to poverty levels. It seems that we may well have a doubling of world poverty by next year. We may well have at least a doubling of child malnutrition.'
Dr Nabarro continued: 'Lockdowns just have one consequence that you must never ever belittle, and that is making poor people an awful lot poorer.' He concluded: 'And so, we really do appeal to all world leaders: stop using lockdown as your primary control method. Develop better systems for doing it. Work together and learn from each other.'
Gupta is a critic of the lockdown approach to the COVID-19 pandemic, and was one of the primary authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, which advocated a focused response to the COVID-19 pandemic based on levels of individual risk. The World Health Organization, as well as other numerous academic and public-health bodies, have stated that the strategy proposed by the Declaration is dangerous, unethical, and lacks a sound scientific basis. The American Public Health Association and 13 other public-health groups in the United States warned in a joint open letter that the Great Barrington Declaration "is not a strategy, it is a political statement. It ignores sound public health expertise. It preys on a frustrated populace. Instead of selling false hope that will predictably backfire, we must focus on how to manage this pandemic in a safe, responsible, and equitable way.
Bhattacharya called on governments to overturn their coronavirus strategies and to allow young and healthy people to return to normal life while protecting the most vulnerable. This would let the virus spread in low-risk groups, with the aim of achieving "herd immunity", which would result in enough of the population becoming resistant to the virus to quell the pandemic. Writing for Science-Based Medicine, David Gorski, Professor of Surgery at Wayne State University, stated that "One possible interpretation is that Drs. Gupta, Bhattacharya, and Kulldorff are politically very naïve or were "simply being useful idiots" for the American Institute for Economic Research, the organization promoting it, or whether they were actively being "motivated more by ideology than science", but said that the practical effect was that the declaration provided a narrative of scientific division useful for political purposes. In May 2021, Bhattacharya was called as an expert witness for ten applicants who filed a constitutional challenge against Manitoba's COVID-19 public health orders. The judge determined that the public health restrictions did not violate charter rights, noting that Bhattacharya's views were not supported by most scientific and medical experts.
Kulldorff Same as above. Engages in partisan politics, sides with far-right politicians in their quests to ban masks, vaccines for children, etc.
I can understand people have fatigue regarding COVID-19 restrictions, but spreading these untruths and exploiting frustrations of our community members to push this agenda is unfortunate. The scientific community consensus supports the restrictions that are in place. Travel restrictions (proof of negative test, vaccination), mask enforcement, testing and contact tracing are the methods required to understand and contain this pandemic.
The cost of our membership in society is modification of our behavior to conform. If we enjoy the benefits of society, we must also embrace and accept the costs.
The opinions and views expressed on this board are the subjective opinions of Ambergris Caye Message Board members and not of the Ambergris Caye Message Board its affiliates, or its employees.
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