The Great Barrington Declaration - Printable Version
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The Great Barrington Declaration - thatboy - 10-08-2020
Any thoughts on this?
https://gbdeclaration.org/
RE: The Great Barrington Declaration - dabigv13 - 10-08-2020
Look at who signed it, our old friend who smeared Stanford's good name with his shitty study, Dr. Bhattacharya. This is the same denialism from the early days of the pandemic, if we had followed their advice we'd have many more dead.
It sounds nice to isolate the vulnerable, but that's not exactly a simple thing to do.
RE: The Great Barrington Declaration - BostonCard - 10-08-2020
Will note one of the signatories:
Quote:Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor at Stanford University Medical School, a physician, epidemiologist, health economist, and public health policy expert focusing on infectious diseases and vulnerable populations.
He's known for the Santa Clara antibody study.
Ad homoinims aside, I don't think what they are advocating is entirely unreasonable, though I have some nits to pick:
Quote:Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health.
Very few places are in a true lockdown. There are, of course, restrictions on certain high-risk activities, but I can freely walk around my neighborhood, participate in small gatherings, and take part in most of the activities that I used to take part in. So we are debating about whether certain activities are allowable or not. Much of what they are advocating (for example, restaurants) are allowed with certain restrictions. I happen to agree with them on in person schooling.
Where I disagree is the idea that:
1) You can reliably protect vulnerable populations. I mean, the President of the United States was a vulnerable person, essentially no expense was spared in protecting him, and he nonetheless caught COVID-19 and required hospitalization. If one could truly segregate vulnerable people from younger, healthy people, that's great, but evidence to date is that we cannot do that effectively, and the more young, healthy people who are infected, the greater the risk of inadvertent infection of vulnerable populations.
2) We don't actually know that we can reach herd immunity. Herd immunity is predicated on the idea that getting sick confers long-lasting immunity. We know that re-infections are very rare (a handful of documented re-infections worldwide), but we have no idea how long that protection lasts. If it lasts for a long time, then yes, we will reach herd immunity. If immunity wains over the course of a year, then the virus will become endemic, periodically re-infecting people and becoming endemic.
3) Formal restrictions on activity are only part of the story. Just because people can do certain activities, doesn't mean that they will. They don't argue this, but I do think that there is an underlying assumption that things would go back to normal, but for government restrictions, when in fact things would go back to normal, but for the pandemic, and, in fact, the quickest way for everything to be shut down is for there to be a large spike in cases and deaths.
BC
RE: The Great Barrington Declaration - akiddoc - 10-08-2020
The assumption that we will ever have "herd" immunity from wild infection is not backed up by any data. We couldn't get it from wild Varicella. But we do have it from Varicella vaccine. I think it's more likely to occur with a vaccine than with their proposed method of going on with life as if nothing has changed, and with a lot (a lot) less death.
RE: The Great Barrington Declaration - Genuine Realist - 10-08-2020
(10-08-2020, 10:08 PM)akiddoc Wrote: The assumption that we will ever have "herd" immunity from wild infection is not backed up by any data. We couldn't get it from wild Varicella. But we do have it from Varicella vaccine. I think it's more likely to occur with a vaccine than with their proposed method of going on with life as if nothing has changed, and with a lot (a lot) less death.Surely there's some flex here, between populations at obviously high risk (yours truly) and those at a very low level (my granddaughter).
My own thought is that some of the anti-masking nonsense is a reaction to severe lockdowns that are seen as overkill. The time may be coming to give the public guidance and let water seek its own level.
RE: The Great Barrington Declaration - OutsiderFan - 10-10-2020
I've concluded as long as everyone wears masks, limits their time indoors with others, and washes/sanitizes hands, we can manage virus without too many business closures.
One question I have however, is if we allow bars/restaurants to open without masks, but require them everywhere else, would only a handful of people get Covid because the population that is infected in such places will be limited as many people (like me) won't be going to such places until pandemic is over? Or, is SARS-CoV-2 just too virulent to even allow a limited slice of population in high risk spread environments because there really is no continuing the virus even if masks are required everywhere else, like stores, banks, movie theaters, schools, other outdoor gatherings, etc?
RE: The Great Barrington Declaration - Goose - 10-10-2020
(10-10-2020, 05:50 AM)OutsiderFan Wrote: I've concluded as long as everyone wears masks, limits their time indoors with others, and washes/sanitizes hands, we can manage virus without too many business closures.I have concluded this is a definite maybe. I am not sure where one can gather evidence that you are correct, because I am not of the opinion that the "everyone" condition has been met anywhere. I think at best you would have to substitute "enough people" for everyone, and then what is enough? I do think that we are doing lots of separate, uncontrolled experiments nationwide right now, and we will eventually settle into some condition where the most businesses possible are open for the compliance levels that we can get. At that point, you can decide if it is "too many" businesses being closed, but it won't matter, because that's what you get.
The population will adjust their behavior in response basically to the death rate. Unfortunately, the delay in the death rate is high enough that the adjustment can be very unstable. The death rate that the public at large is willing to absorb may be much higher that most of us on this board are willing to accept, but that is what will control the outcome. It will probably mean high risk people have to be very careful, and younger, healthier people do not (and will not). We are seeing this already, and it will continue to "adjust".
RE: The Great Barrington Declaration - Snorlax94 - 10-10-2020
I’ve always wondered why more people don’t call the current administration on its inconsistencies.
If a vaccine is indeed coming in October (which it is not), why would you open now to achieve herd immunity through infection when a vaccine is only days away? Days! Milions of doses of the greatest vaccine ever! So close! So why expose tens of millions of young people now? As for the people exhorting young people to go out and get infected, where are they? Are they themselves out without masks congregating indoors, or are they hiding at home, like Vlad Putin, telling other people to not be dominated.
If hydroxychloroquine is this amazing super drug (try it! What do you have to lose?!?), why didn’t the president take it when he was sick?
If testing and masks are unhelpful, why did the president require his staff to be constantly tested and to wear masks when around him (although apparently he is exempt from this rule). Why does he tell Americans they don’t need to wear masks while requiring staff around him to do so?
RE: The Great Barrington Declaration - Farm93 - 10-10-2020
(10-08-2020, 10:40 PM)Genuine Realist Wrote:We have done nothing similar to what they did in most of Europe or Asia. And already Europe is getting a rather robust second wave of cases, so that's a very troubling sign that with COVID19 our second wave will be very tough. And I am sure our healthcare workers would like to see the USA try consistent policies at least for a few weeks before deciding that policies are hopeless.(10-08-2020, 10:08 PM)akiddoc Wrote: The assumption that we will ever have "herd" immunity from wild infection is not backed up by any data. We couldn't get it from wild Varicella. But we do have it from Varicella vaccine. I think it's more likely to occur with a vaccine than with their proposed method of going on with life as if nothing has changed, and with a lot (a lot) less death.Surely there's some flex here, between populations at obviously high risk (yours truly) and those at a very low level (my granddaughter).
My own thought is that some of the anti-masking nonsense is a reaction to severe lockdowns that are seen as overkill. The time may be coming to give the public guidance and let water seek its own level.
Overkill is a territory the USA never saw. A number of major cities and rather large states didn't do much at all on COVID. Several states did things for a duration of time that was obviously not long enough to stop a virus with a 5-10 day incubation period.
Worse the Miami Dolphins will allow 100% capacity in their stadium soon. The SEC games seem rather fond of generating several superspreader events each Saturday. COVID will feast on this lack of discipline, sadly.
We are going to have a rough winter if your view wins the day because we are going to need to do a lot more over the next 90 days to keep healthcare workers safe & sane. Someone from the CDC or HHS is going to need to tell Americans that we can't keep going to restaurants and football games and expect a very small group of healthcare workers to just deal with our decadence.
Hopefully in ~25 days a new national voice will get people to understand that science has to win out over late night gut-based tweets. In times of war citizens have had to make far, far greater sacrifices, and to some degree we are at war right now with a virus more deadly for Americans than the militaries of our adversaries.
That brings us to a more effective solution - Get someone in WH to disable POTUS45's twitter account or perhaps convince POTUS45 to let Ivanka be the ghost writer for the next few weeks.
RE: The Great Barrington Declaration - BostonCard - 10-15-2020
Tyler Cowen, who bends somewhat libertarian, disagrees with the declaration:
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-10-15/great-barrington-declaration-is-wrong-about-herd-immunity
This is a good point:
Quote:First and foremost, the declaration does not present the most important point right now, which is to say October 2020: By the middle of next year, and quite possibly sooner, the world will be in a much better position to combat Covid-19. The arrival of some mix of vaccines and therapeutics will improve the situation, so it makes sense to shift cases and infection risks into the future while being somewhat protective now. To allow large numbers of people today to die of Covid, in wealthy countries, is akin to charging the hill and taking casualties two days before the end of World War I.
BC
RE: The Great Barrington Declaration - 82lsju - 10-15-2020
Quote:A controversial anti-lockdown declaration and petition whose principal authors and signatories from around the world include four Stanford University doctors has pulled its online signature list following a report that it included dozens of fake names.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/10/14/coronavirus-anti-lockdown-declaration-pulls-signature-list-after-report-of-fake-names/
Quote:A widely-circulated open letter calling on governments to pursue herd immunity is counting homeopaths, therapists and fake names among its "medical" signatories, leading to accusations that it falsely represents scientific support for the controversial position.
The Great Barrington Declaration, a letter organised by prominent advocates of herd immunity, claims to have been signed by more than 15,000 scientists and medical practitioners, as well as more than 150,000 members of the general public.
Yet Sky News found dozens of fake names on the list of medical signatories, which anyone can add to if they tick a box and enter a name. These included Dr. I.P. Freely, Dr. Person Fakename and Dr. Johnny Bananas, who listed himself as a "Dr of Hard Sums".
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-dr-johnny-bananas-and-dr-person-fakename-among-medical-signatories-on-herd-immunity-open-letter-12099947
RE: The Great Barrington Declaration - dabigv13 - 10-15-2020
Dr. Johnny Bananas got a laugh out of me. Glad these dinguses are being made fools of. Really frustrating how Stanford mentions during the pandemic focus on how it's the academic home of monsters like Dr. Atlas, or where the Trump admin gave secret information to investors at Hoover while downplaying the severity to the public.
RE: The Great Barrington Declaration - BostonCard - 10-15-2020
Dr. Anthoni Fauci agrees with you:
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/521220-fauci-blasts-herd-immunity-proposal-embraced-by-white-house-as-total
I believe the words he used were "total nonsense".
BC
RE: The Great Barrington Declaration - fullmetal - 10-15-2020
Dr. I.P. Freely...gotta love it. Gonna reference that if anyone trots this "declaration" out in a discussion.
RE: The Great Barrington Declaration - teejers1 - 10-15-2020
(10-15-2020, 02:04 PM)fullmetal Wrote: Dr. I.P. Freely...gotta love it. Gonna reference that if anyone trots this "declaration" out in a discussion.
Sounds like the name tags seen at rush functions way back in the day:
Hugh Jorgan
Pat McGroin
Svink TerTite
And a host of other juvenile names . . .
RE: The Great Barrington Declaration - BostonCard - 10-15-2020
Memories of this...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nhFH25JNgc
BC
RE: The Great Barrington Declaration - BostonCard - 10-15-2020
This could also go in the humor thread...
![[Image: 20201017_WWD000_0.jpg]](https://www.economist.com/img/b/1280/886/90/sites/default/files/images/print-edition/20201017_WWD000_0.jpg)
BC
RE: The Great Barrington Declaration - 82lsju - 10-15-2020
(10-15-2020, 04:21 PM)teejers1 Wrote:(10-15-2020, 02:04 PM)fullmetal Wrote: Dr. I.P. Freely...gotta love it. Gonna reference that if anyone trots this "declaration" out in a discussion.
Sounds like the name tags seen at rush functions way back in the day:
Hugh Jorgan
Pat McGroin
Svink TerTite
And a host of other juvenile names . . .
I'd be surprised if junior high school kids were not involved for many of the entertaining names.....
RE: The Great Barrington Declaration - JJJ - 10-15-2020
Nerd mentality. Nerd immunity.
https://techdirt.threadless.com/designs
(Sorry, I can't get the images to show. They're just t-shirts that have the above words on them.)
RE: The Great Barrington Declaration - Mick - 10-15-2020
Try these names:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1JYHNX8pdo