President Donald Trump has in recent weeks aligned himself with the ideas suggested by scientists under the pressure of “scientific immunity” to fight the novel coronavirus, which is considered “dangerous” by public health experts and by a leading federal government official. Called “ridiculous”. , Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Since Saturday, the president has repeatedly criticized the “unscientific lockdown” – citing public health experts as a supporter of stricter sanctions – and called for coronavirus-related restrictions on American society. The problem itself. “
And after his own fight with the virus, Trump has made claims about his own supposedly “immune” standard campaign fare. “I am immune and I can’t give it to you – however, scientists do not fully understand how strong the immune system is or how long it can last,” he boasted on Wednesday.
“Remember, when you catch it, you’ll be fine, and you’re immune.” He said in an interview with Fox News last week, despite the lack of conclusive research and the fact that hundreds of thousands have died since his contract.
While he has largely avoided using the term “mob immunity” to describe the policies he has given, the president’s views reflect those of a small subset of scientists with powerful allies in the White House, Scott Atlas, who has no background. Among the infectious diseases that have endorsed Fu Ki and other top federal public health officials as Trump’s top medical advisers.
Scientists argue that the United States should try to obtain “herd immunity” to COVID-19 by allowing the natural spread of the virus through the population, while protecting only “sensitive” groups such as the elderly. Eventually, they say, enough people will get sick and recover – and potentially become immune to re-purification, at least for some time – that the rate of spread will decrease.
But the broad consensus of mainstream public health experts, explicitly rejecting the idea, argues that it kills millions and conflicts with the underlying medical conditions in Americans, such as obesity, causing them to suffer severe symptoms. The probability is high. And die.
These top experts, however, widely agree that extreme social-distance measures can have an adverse effect on society – physically, mentally and economically – and should be avoided, whenever possible. They say they, too, are opposed to total “lockdown,” but that measures such as wearing masks and limiting gatherings can reduce the rate of infection.
“The idea that we have the power to save the weak is complete nonsense,” Foisi said Thursday in an interview with ABC News chief anchor George Stefanopoulos on “Good Morning America.” “And if you talk to someone with an experience of epidemics and infectious diseases, they will tell you that it is dangerous and you can end up infecting sensitive people, which can lead to hospitalization and death.
“So I think we look at that square in the eye and say it’s nonsense,” Fawcett said.
However, the Trump administration has not treated it as nonsense.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar Met last week With Atlas and some researchers who have endorsed the idea behind the “bunch immune system” approach without giving it any label. Atlas himself is the president’s salary adviser.
In addition to insisting on lifting coronavirus-related sanctions and “exposing” the country as a whole, Trump has also repeatedly insisted – often with misleading statistics – that the virus only affects the elderly or people with pre-existing conditions. It focuses its attention on groups that adhere to “animal immunity”, which reduces the risk to others.
In reality, thousands of young Americans have died – and millions have fallen ill.
The White House called a conference call to reporters Monday to draw attention to the Great Barrington Declaration, a petition online petition arguing in favor of acquiring natural flock immunity while “centralized protection” is used to protect the most vulnerable people. The authors of the open letter boasted thousands of signatories, but Sky News found that “homeopaths, physicians and pseudonyms” such as “Dr. Johnny’s Johnny Banana” and “Dr.
The Infectious Diseases Society of America on Wednesday called the petition’s ideas “inappropriate, irresponsible and uninformed.” In an open letter published Thursday in the leading medical journal The Lancet, an international group of top medical experts has endorsed a counter-petition called the John Snow Memorandum, which strongly opposes the natural pursuit of “mob immunity.”
“Uncontrolled transmission in young people carries a significant epidemic and mortality risk throughout the population,” the authors wrote in the memorandum, which is supported by leading epidemiologists. “In addition to human costs, this will affect the overall workforce and deprive the health and wellness system of the ability to provide intensive and routine care.”
No government epidemiologist or infectious disease specialist was in the White House call, and when pressured, a senior administration official said the White House did not actually formally endorse the request.
“We are not endorsing any plan,” an official who asked not to be named told reporters. “This plan supports the fact that the President’s policy has been going on for months.”
Fawcett told ABC News on Thursday that prominent public health experts supporting the “lockdown” in the Great Barrington Declaration have been misrepresented.
“There are some things in that announcement that I think will fool people, because it says things like apple pie and motherhood.” “A, we don’t want to shut down the country. I say it all the time. B, we definitely want to save vulnerable people.”
In a statement issued by the White House, Atlas said, “We strongly deny that anyone advising the White House, the President, the administration or the President has advocated or advocated for any strategy to achieve mob immunity by spreading the coronavirus infection.” ” He said the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration emphasized the “focused protection of the weak and the safe end of the closure of schools and society.”
“Those specific policies are in line with the president, who has repeatedly stated and adhered to a life-saving strategy by the following: aggressively rescuing vulnerable people, preventing hospital congestion, and opening schools and communities safely,” Atlas said. Atlas said.
But John Bronstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, said the Great Barrington Declaration, in fact, gave back the idea of tearing down the virus by the community – as long as sensitive people were safe. “It’s the same thing,” said Brownstein, a contributor to ABC News. “I don’t see the difference.”
Brownstein said the notion of “focused defense” was “theoretically exciting to think about” but was “unattainable in our population” due to the high level of medical conditions in the population as well as the interconnectedness of society.
“We know everyone is a bridge to a high-risk person,” he said. “It’s just not practical to think that you can isolate high-risk people from the population.”
The president has been pushing for months to end coronavirus bans – including those recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal health officials – including wearing masks and state and local regulations banning large gatherings.
A close ally, Florida’s G.O.P. The governor, Ron Descentis, is also pushing researchers to come up with ideas behind natural “bunch immunity”.
In late September, the Republicans held a roundtable discussion with Descentis, who would later meet with Azar, Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University, and Martin Culdorf of Harvard Medical School.
The next day, the Republican, D. Santis, lifted all coronavirus-related restrictions in the state.
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