On Monday top international epidemiologists Dr. Martin Kulldorff from Harvard, Dr. Sunetra Gupta from Oxford and Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya from Stanford got together in Great Barrington to announce the launching of an international declaration and petition drive to reopen society and resume life in the West for those who are not vulnerable to the coronavirus.
Said Kulldorff Here we protect the elderly or other high risk groups while the younger resume life more or less normally.”
Dr. Kulldorff then announced that his group put out a declaration this morning and there are now over 500 medical health and public health scientists who have co-signed the declaration as well as over 500 practicing medical professionals.
Doctors Gupta and Bhattacharya echoed Dr. Kulldorff and explained how herd immunity should be the goal and could be accomplished in a relatively short amount of time where even the elderly and sickly would eventually be safe to come out of lockdown.
This goes against Dr. Fauci and his outrageous policies that have destroyed millions of lives and livelihoods.
Fauci and the current medical elites need to be ignored for now and eventually replaced.
The Great Barrington Declaration ( https://gbdeclaration.org )
Signed By (thus far)
906 Medical & Public Health Scientists
1,083 Medical Practitioners
15,418 General Public
"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.
