![]() ![]() Last and most important, vaccines are being tested that might just protect us if we can stay uninfected long enough to get our immunity that way. In a world first, a number of health experts from all over the world came together calling for an end to coronavirus lockdowns earlier this week. And there is every reason to expect medical care for this new disease to be better in three or six months than it is now. The Great Barrington Declaration, the minority view, advocates focused protection, allowing younger and healthier individuals to continue life, work and going to school, while aiming more. Further, data suggest that only two-thirds of the 225,000 excess deaths from March to August were covid-related an overwhelmed health-care system means there is little reserve to care for all the other diseases hospitals were created to treat. Size of this JPG preview of this PDF file: 388 × 600 pixels. Treatments are getting better, and there are indications that more people who would have died of covid-19 earlier in the outbreak are surviving. The proposal, introduced by three prominent epidemiologists and scientists at a summit sponsored by the American Institute for Economic Research, seems to offer a welcome alternative to current policies of blanket lockdowns. ![]() A flatter curve, with more infections delayed, means a health-care system better able to cope with the cases it does have. With the recently issued Great Barrington Declaration, the antilockdown movement has received a shot in the arm. Even if we assume herd immunity will come sooner or later through the natural spread of the infection, we should prefer to delay it. “Flatten the curve” was a good idea when the world first heard the concept in March, and it still is. Heneghan and Gupta even managed to get an audience with the Prime Minister to promote these theories as policy measures. The result of letting the infection go in the general population will, in all likelihood, be a persistent problem, not a nightmare followed by a blissful awakening. The Great Barrington Declaration, and this obsession with naturally-acquired herd immunity by simply letting the virus spread through the population, has undoubtedly cost lives. But coronavirus immunity is notoriously short-lived and partial: Other coronaviruses are called “seasonal” because, like the flu, they circulate every year. If we let the virus spread uncontrolled in the younger population, we will indeed build up some herd immunity that will probably reduce further spread - for a while. So far, 42,000 Americans under 65 have died from the disease - more than four times as many as typically die in that age group from seasonal flu - and we’ve only had eight months or so of intense covid-19 activity, so the numbers will keep growing. The Great Barrington Declaration and Its Critics. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that nearly 50 percent of Americans live with underlying conditions that predispose them to serious outcomes from covid-19. It is true that, compared with older demographics, the young and healthy fare well. Covid-19 is unquestionably worse for someone who is male, older, sicker or lacks access to health care. ![]()
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