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An international group of scientists has called on governments to reverse their strategies against the coronavirus and allow young and healthy people to return to normal life while protecting the most vulnerable.
The proposal developed by three researchers, but signed by many more, advocates letting the virus spread in low-risk groups in the hope of achieving so-called herd immunity, a situation in which a sufficient part of the population is resistant to the virus. virus to suffocate. the pandemic.
Described in what the authors call “The Great Barrington Declaration,” after the Massachusetts city where it was written, the plan marks the latest round of a heated debate among scientists who support radically different approaches to the crisis. One critic said it amounted to sacrificing the sick and disabled, calling the idea “grotesque.”
The authors of the statement, Sunetra Gupta of Oxford University, Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University and Martin Kulldorff of Harvard University, argue that the Covid-19 blockades and restrictions are producing “devastating effects” on public health. by disrupting routine care and damaging mental health. with the disadvantaged bearing the greatest burden.
While many governments are trying to suppress the virus until new treatments and vaccines are found, the trio write that older people and others at risk should protect themselves while those in less danger should “be able to immediately resume normal life.”
David Livermore, professor of medical microbiology at the University of East Anglia and a signatory to the statement, said older people in nursing homes could be protected by paying caregivers good wages to live in neighboring accommodation, for a month at a time. . . He admitted that it was more difficult to protect the large number of older people in the community, but suggested that people could protect themselves. “If you’re 75, you can choose to go out as little as possible,” he said. Efforts to keep infections low, he added, “just dragged things down.”
The proposal follows conflicting advice sent last month from the two camps to the UK government and leading doctors. In an open letter, Professor Gupta and her colleagues argued that suppressing the virus was “unworkable,” while the other, led by Professor Trish Greenhalgh, also from Oxford, said it was not practical to isolate an entire cohort of vulnerable people. of the society.
William Hanage, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard, said the statement appeared to be attacking a massive and ongoing lockdown position that no one was taking. “After correctly pointing out the indirect damage caused by the pandemic, they respond that the answer is to increase the direct damage it causes,” he said.
The work of Hanage and others suggests that Covid becomes more lethal than the flu beginning in the mid-1930s and increases exponentially from there, meaning that a large portion of the population, not in nursing homes, I would need protection. “Stating that the virus can be kept out of place by conducting tests at a time when the White House has an apparently ongoing outbreak should illustrate how likely that is,” he said.
Another concern, he added, is that a runaway epidemic among the young and healthy could leave many with long-term medical problems, the so-called “prolonged Covid” disorders that have already affected young people.
In a tweet in response to the statement, Gregg Gonsalves, an epidemiologist at Yale University, said shutdowns and other interventions would have to take place to reduce infection rates. Given that nearly half the population has some underlying health risk from Covid-19, he said herd immunity strategies “consist of culling the herd of sick and disabled. It’s grotesque. “
