The Great Barrington Declaration

[Ibake]

I watched this today and then read the subsequent articles. I found it very powerful, not least because it talks very specifically about how we protect the old and clinically vulnerable. They call it Focused Protection and argue that it is what we should replace lockdowns with so that we don't destroy our children's education, our healthcare systems and the economy whilst trying to mitigate the global effect of Covid.

World renowned epidemiologists and immunologists have put their name to it (attached pic)

It's 30 mins long but worth watching.
unherd.com/2020/10/covid-experts-there-is-another-way/?fbclid=IwAR0UZJSBkqMZwNxhZsgrFxQikRPpEj6IvxsaCO6r12RK5BCYeRz6gk0QyPQ

gbdeclaration.org
If you agree with the content you can also sign the declaration.

reaction.life/we-are-throwing-the-working-class-under-the-bus-an-interview-with-professor-martin-kulldorff/

Have to say some of ‘the vulnerable’ (or families of) maybe need to re-evaluate their positions perhaps?

Because in a lot of cases, yes it may be very unfortunate they are living with a condition, but maybe it could also be considered very fortunate that they have been born & are living in an era where their continued enabled existence at all through modern medicine is surely something to be thankful for & it’s only modern medicine that even gives us the opportunity to be presented with this moral dilemma? Previously, in a lot of cases (dependent on condition etc) it wouldn’t even be up for discussion or even an option? Born a century ago with Diabetes? Tough. Suck it up.

(Speaking as somebody whose older sibling died age 7, in 1962, before modern medicine)

@MummyPop00

Have to say some of ‘the vulnerable’ (or families of) maybe need to re-evaluate their positions perhaps?

Because in a lot of cases, yes it may be very unfortunate they are living with a condition, but maybe it could also be considered very fortunate that they have been born & are living in an era where their continued enabled existence at all through modern medicine is surely something to be thankful for & it’s only modern medicine that even gives us the opportunity to be presented with this moral dilemma? Previously, in a lot of cases (dependent on condition etc) it wouldn’t even be up for discussion or even an option? Born a century ago with Diabetes? Tough. Suck it up.

(Speaking as somebody whose older sibling died age 7, in 1962, before modern medicine)

This attitude is makes me sick and hard to understand at the same time. Being born a century ago the majority of us would be living in slums, have limited education, little food and a much lower life expectancy. Don't you think the entire population should be grateful for our health and living standards today? If you still can't see or understand the reasons for the restrictions I give up.

@Oaktree55

You do realise this was written by a load of cranks with political and financial motivations.

The funniest thing is they obviously didn’t proof read it. They got a load of signatures purported to be from scientists. There’s loads of piss take ones which they didn’t even notice

Prof. Bert. N. Ernie
Prof. Badass

😆😆😆🤣

They’re a complete laughing stock

All three links provided by the OP take you to alt right oriented (when talking about society in general) crackpot(of whom several are, actual scientists, the one doesn't preclude the other) conspiracy theorists. These people are the "Dr" Wakefield of Covid.

to those having to put up with this sort of shit, not only from the government but also from the common or garden MNer.

@MaxNormal

I'd rather deal in facts, and certainly not in projections by Neil sucked-it-out-my-arse Ferguson.

You prefer facts yet link to an article saying "may have caused"

How's that work then?

redbushtea

Covid is 4 times more infectious and deadly than flu. There is lots of evidence for this.

Not signing.

We are a civilisation, which means we look after our vulnerable.

We’ve just got to have restrictions until there is a vaccine which will be next spring.

Has anyone said yet that their grandma has said we're not to sacrifice ourselves for her and she's fine with being sent to Soylent Green?

They will.
They'd even fuck their own gran over.

We’ve just got to have restrictions until there is a vaccine which will be next spring.

Well, I’m really not sure about that & approval, manufacture & rollout all takes time, but let’s be optimistic & say you are correct; in that case it wouldn’t be that long for you to continue shielding would it?

...& what if not? What if no decent vaccine or treatment? TTI doesn’t work, our population is too ill disciplined & the government has insisted Schools remaining open is a priority (rightly so imo).

I asked before - what if no decent vaccine or treatment? Live like this for the next 15 years until it spreads naturally, but deliberately slowly through the population?

We’ve just got to have restrictions until there is a vaccine which will be next spring

Even if a vaccine is approved by Spring 2021, it may well take over a year to roll it out to the population.

Who's going to pay our wages until then?

A study from Edinburgh Uni appears to suggest that herd immunity could have saved more lives than lockdown. I've not read it yet, just pointing it out.

The Wired article linked earlier is worth a read.

Is it completely obvious, possibly, but where did the name come from?

@Sunflowers247

A study from Edinburgh Uni appears to suggest that herd immunity could have saved more lives than lockdown. I've not read it yet, just pointing it out.

Unfortunately herd immunity works if it invokes a reliably persistent immune response, and we have no evidence for that. In fact there is evidence for reinfection within months, and the illness might actually get worse with subsequent infections.

I don't understand this 'vulnerable' thing, its as if the 'vulnerable' are only vulnerable to covid.
My MIL is 85 and has COPD, has done for several years, every winter we worry she might catch the infection that kills her. Covid is just another infection on that list. She has been vulnerable to covid but she is equally vulnerable to the other infections that have put her in ICU over the last few winters.
My friend is 36 and on imunosuppresents for her MS she again is vulnerable to any infection not just covid, she refuses to hide away as she will tell you she us no more vulnerable now than since the day she started taking the medication, Covid is just another bug that could kill her.
My SIL not yet 30 has no spleen so a similar situation. They are not suddenly at no increased risk of death if covid goes away

At the end of the day we are all vulnerable to all sorts if things, being run over, or murdered or attacked by a bear - do those who are stronger fitter have a responsibility to jump in front of that car/murderer/bear because they can run quicker. Of course not.

You would for your child, but you wouldn't risk destroying your child's life by you being killed to save someone else.

That is what we are being asked to do, to throw ourselves at the bear, to risk our children's lives in terms if their education, mental health, ability to experience the world, make friends and start relationships. To save a randomer from the bear only for them to be killed by the wolf over the next hill.

@TheSeedsOfADream

Has anyone said yet that their grandma has said we're not to sacrifice ourselves for her and she's fine with being sent to Soylent Green?

They will.
They'd even fuck their own gran over.

My grandma wants to get on with her life and see her grandchildren and great grandchildren. She is perfectly happy to take her chances now. Nothing to do with anyone sacrificing themselves for anyone.

@Ohchristmastreeohchristmastree

Not signing.

We are a civilisation, which means we look after our vulnerable.

We’ve just got to have restrictions until there is a vaccine which will be next spring.

What if there isn’t a vaccine next spring? What if it’s two years away?

Not nice at all. Particularly not nice to suggest that there are different types of people- vulnerable and not vulnerable.
We need to consider that those not vulnerable people are now seen suffering long term very serious complications despite a relatively mild initial reaction to the virus. Long Covid19 is just rearing it’s head.

Is this the study Sunflowers247 www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.18.20135004v1.full.pdf ?
There are some uncomfortable truths that people are going to have to get to grips with. People are going to get ill and die whatever we do. It maybe of covid, with covid or because of the measures we use to suppress covid (lockdown deaths from delayed treatment, suicide. There are no perfect options here only trade offs.
The Edinburgh University study points out that by locking down we may have increased the number of covid deaths overall. You need to read it, or some of the reports covering it, but basically by stopping the spread among healthy young people when schools and universities closed we have increased the total deaths among the elderly and vulnerable. Herd immunity may be a controversial idea but it is the natural outcome of a disease, not a strategy. Every infection contributes to making it harder for the disease to find its next victim and it is better if these are young healthy people than old or vulnerable ones.

@SarahMused

Is this the study Sunflowers247 www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.18.20135004v1.full.pdf ? There are some uncomfortable truths that people are going to have to get to grips with. People are going to get ill and die whatever we do. It maybe of covid, with covid or because of the measures we use to suppress covid (lockdown deaths from delayed treatment, suicide. There are no perfect options here only trade offs. The Edinburgh University study points out that by locking down we may have increased the number of covid deaths overall. You need to read it, or some of the reports covering it, but basically by stopping the spread among healthy young people when schools and universities closed we have increased the total deaths among the elderly and vulnerable. Herd immunity may be a controversial idea but it is the natural outcome of a disease, not a strategy. Every infection contributes to making it harder for the disease to find its next victim and it is better if these are young healthy people than old or vulnerable ones.

As said by other posters. This is a new disease and it is not a given that antibodies from infection will be strong enough and long lasting. A vaccination can be given yearly/twice yearly. The viral load is something else to think of. So many previously healthy drs still suffering serious health problems. A virus circulating uncontrolled could cause more ling lasting health problems .

No the study was published yesterday and is called

Effect of school closures on mortality from coronavirus disease 2019: old and new predictions

Sorry I can't link.

@MummyPop00

Have to say some of ‘the vulnerable’ (or families of) maybe need to re-evaluate their positions perhaps?

Because in a lot of cases, yes it may be very unfortunate they are living with a condition, but maybe it could also be considered very fortunate that they have been born & are living in an era where their continued enabled existence at all through modern medicine is surely something to be thankful for & it’s only modern medicine that even gives us the opportunity to be presented with this moral dilemma? Previously, in a lot of cases (dependent on condition etc) it wouldn’t even be up for discussion or even an option? Born a century ago with Diabetes? Tough. Suck it up.

(Speaking as somebody whose older sibling died age 7, in 1962, before modern medicine)

So yes, I shouldn't be alive at all.

In which case my kids wouldn't have been born.

Since I, and they, exist, the youngest only 8, I want to stay around for them.

I also want the society in which they live not to be one in which the health service is overwhelmed as Italy was in March and April.

The thing is, we have the medical knowledge and the choices to be compassionate. So we should choose intelligent compassion.

As a doctor, I know that a lot of senior health care professionals will be themselves vulnerable. There are a lot of BAME staff, people with all manner of different health conditions and they are people too.

Likewise, at secondary school, there will be teachers and parents in thier 50s and 60s, and with a variety of health conditions.

Leave this to rip and I can see that the precious institutions of the NHS and education will suffer greatly.

I think that there is a need to differentiate between the more vulnerable, but it should be intelligent and discriminating. [So there should be the option for home or distant schooling especially important for ECV families, but could be open to all], . I think secondary schools especially with a similar exam board could share some on line materials to reduce the workload. Vulnerable teachers could be organised to work with home schooling children. etc.]

I think though it would be pretty unwise for the rest of society to go back to the old way of doing things. We would have a big mess.

We are in a big mess now anyway. If the economy doesn‘t recover we won‘t be able to keep society functioning like we are used to. At that point the lives of old and ecv people become more difficult. Covid is one among many things we need to consider when deciding how we deal with this situation.

www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-barrington-declaration-an-open-letter-arguing-against-lockdown-policies-and-for-focused-protection/

Interesting perspectives here...

mrshoho We don‘t have a vaccine and maybe not for months or longer. Out of the many millions around the world that have had are very few cases of people catching covid more than once and there seem to be very specific circumstances in those cases. This is the best we have at the moment. Could be that those university students with covid are doing everyone a favour.

We can’t protect the vulnerable without a functioning economy. The uk is in massive debt. With over a million job losses and counting. I think people don’t understand how bad our economy is - we have more in poverty than ever before. It’s creating a new vulnerable. Sorry but we don’t have much choice now - we need to get those able out working. And I say this as someone who hates this dire gov. We’ve run out of options sorry.

@Newgirls

We can’t protect the vulnerable without a functioning economy. The uk is in massive debt. With over a million job losses and counting. I think people don’t understand how bad our economy is - we have more in poverty than ever before. It’s creating a new vulnerable. Sorry but we don’t have much choice now - we need to get those able out working. And I say this as someone who hates this dire gov. We’ve run out of options sorry.

Yes this. We are sacrificing one group of people for another at the moment anyway. Why not choose the version where we will at least have a more functioning economy? There is no other way and people are beginning to realise this. Give it a couple more months and the balance will tip to the majority thinking like this.