This has little to do with the experts or their opinions set out in their treatsie on Covid-19 response.
This is reporting that the unaudited petiton attached to the article has some fake entries (Dr. I.P. Freely, Dr. Person Fakename, Dr. Johnny Bananas, Dominic Cummings!!).
Nothing unexpected here. See Boaty McBoatface, who may have signed the petition too.
Sadly it looks like some media outlets are trying to delegitimise the ideas of these eminent scientists by smearing them by association, rather than taking up the debate. UnHerd are on to it too:
the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), a libertarian free-market think-tank in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, hosted a private gathering of scientists, economists and journalists
The whole thing was sponsored by Koch in the U.S so Iām remaining somewhat skeptical.
Itās fine to be sceptical, but itās a shame to continue to cite articles that predominantly seek to belittle the scientistsā ideas by association, rather than taking up the scientific debate or provide data and counter-argument or even a better hypothesis.
From the above article, Koch āsponsoredā the American Institute for Economic Research (who hosted the meetup in Great Barrington where this treatsie was authorised) to the tune of $68,100 in 2018. Hardly a lot of money in this day and age, and almost insignificant when AIER have their own private investment funds totalling $284,492,000.
I think the scientists make some interesting points, but felt the Wired article was fairly compelling. And the point that author cites from Tim Harford with respect to how lobbying organisations promoted the idea of a lack of scientific consensus to counter curbs on smoking and action being taken on climate change is well made.
Itās all very well for David Nabarro from the WHO to say lockdowns are not necessary but he doesnāt (in the clips Iāve seen on Andrew Neilās feed) explain whatās he thinks is the alternative. And he was saying a month ago that they are necessary when you have an emergency.
Iām hopeful that the enhanced therapeutics since March will prevent things spiralling out of control, but I am definitely also alarmed, and arguably it is an emergency that there are as many people hospitalised in the UK today as there were at the start of lockdown in March, because we know what happened over the next few weeks back then.
I think we must be reading different Internets @clausy!
The Wired article seems to try and discredit the epidemiologists for daring to publish their opinion - a hypothesis - without having already completed research and published data to back it up (if we had the data, things would be much easier, but it takes time to get a full picture and decisions are needed now).
The Wired article also seems to take on a topic of scientific divide (the Barrington Declaration makes no mention of divided scientific opinion itself) and makes a leap to compare this division with methods of big tobacco and climate change deniers. This seems like more smearing by association.
Notably with the exception of a link to a German language article from Max Planck, the Wired article presents no data, opposing research or interviews itself.
Wired, and others, also suggest the Great Barrington Declaration is rallying against a lock-down that doesnāt exist i.e. that it is somewhat irrelevant. Yet today Scotland is facing increased restrictions and England may follow suit. The original epidemiologists treatsie also explicitly mentions a number of activities which are currently restricted:
Personally I found the declaration interesting and relevant, but see it as the opinion of some very well informed experts, not scientific fact. The crux of their opinion, to me, seems to be that all pandemics end when herd immunity is reached in the population, so how we achieve that is really whatās at stake. Handwashing and social distancing reduce the infection rate lowering the bar for herd immunity, an effective vaccine would greatly help achieve herd immunity too. Beyond that protecting vulnerable groups while allowing others to mix and gain natural exposure and immunity sounds very sensible.
But as @jonfrewin noted above, hospitalisations are getting to an alarming level so the need to flatten the curve and protect healthcare must be a priority to avoid some very bad outcomes.
It seems to me that the key question for the Great Barringtonians is how they propose that vulnerable people (including presumably everyone over 60) should be effectively āshieldedā (or advised to shield themselves) without making them prisoners in their own homes and cutting them off from virtually all human contact.
Exactly, it just doesnt work in practice. An example would be a grandparent who is a sole carer for a school-age child who would in going to school, attend a large gathering with other young people on a daily basis. Would that child have to go into social care if the grandparent gets put into protection?
Also, my in-laws are over 60 but still have 3 of their adult kids living at home. Technically they would fall into the category of āvunerableā as they are over 60 so would have to live somewhere else in order to have their āfocused protectionā away from other people living in the house?
2 (probably false) positives In a local primary school and the classes have been sent home. Children thrown under the bus once again.
When children donāt die from covid or transmit it and all the age groups at risk of dying from it have been vaccinated! This is hysterical. These people are now on the wrong side of history. I stand with the children
MODERATOR EDIT - Paragraph removed.
I was thinking that lockdown and covid has been an enlightening study in group behaviour and exposed people for who they really are, and what they REALLY believe in. And a supportive society, with all of its millions / billions of tiny daily communal benefits to mankind is something they clearly donāt actually believe in. That itās optional. MOD EDIT - Sentence removed.
If itās the same class Iām aware of today, I believe the first positive was a (reliable) PCR test, and the second was a lateral flow.
I do agree that the whole primary school class unconditionally self-isolating for 10 days is a high price, and probably disproportionate when we consider the success of the vaccination program and availability of testing.
Also, I happen to know that the teacher of the class Iām aware of has previously been vaccinated.
It certainly is a high price for all kids, parents and teachers. I wonder if having to extend lockdown possibly through to summer (and causing many more deaths, itās so easy to get used to) would be seen as a much higher price though.
For the moment Iām glad theyāre keeping some safeguards in place.
If there is a new strain which is resistant to the vaccine, I suspect a new lockdown will be highly likely regardless of whether local schools and businesses are open or not.
Of course having more of the virus in circulation increases the odds of a mutation, though Iād personally be more concerned to help countries where vaccination and healthcare are not as advanced as here. Still, this underlines the need for us all to keep doing our bit to help i.e. get vaccinated, socially distance and follow lockdown guidance.
Overall I would probably complain less about the school closures if it were clear they would somehow open over summer to make up lost time in teaching, though that still doesnāt recover the stresses placed on families who have to try home-schooling on top of existing commitments. Of course we may still be surprised by plans for summer education, so letās hope a good balance is found.
The autumn term experiment of school, university, and pub openings showed that opening up too quickly, without vaccines administered, kills people - not necessarily those in schools and universities or even in the pub, but they transmit the virus and pass it on to less protected members of society.
There remain parts of London with less than 70% of over 60s vaccinated and even if Covid isnāt going to kill people, it can have serious health implications for adults and possibly for children, so it is worth avoiding catching it if you can.
Within a school it could quickly spread to other classes and their families. For this reason it is worth closing a single class or two, rather than a whole school. And after weeks of nationwide school closure and home-schooling, a couple of extra weeks where there is a risk is not really the equivalent of throwing children under buses. Making them attend classes with infections running rampant is much more equivalent to throwing children (and their families) under buses. If this were the attitude of schools then I suspect many parents would not be happy to send their children to school (that was my decision one year ago when the government was still not taking it seriously), but Iām much happier for schools to make those difficult decisions rather than parents.
Iām afraid Iām still a little impatient for the vaccine to be approved for use on children so that we can completely vaccinate everybody (similar to the way we vaccinate all old and young people against flu, despite very low mortality from flu in children - but they are very good vectors).
The situation in September was very different to now. We are far along in vaccination with half of all adults in the UK having recieved their first dose, home testing is widely available, and in Lewisham the infection level is among lowest of all London boroughs. As we look towards more general reopening of some shops and business in about 3 weeks time, I feel it should be possible to have a more nuanced reaction to a few positive cases in school classes.
Also in areas where the vaccination rate is lower, I think it is a problem of uptake rather than availability or capacity. Itās probably a debate for elsewhere as to what sacrifices society should make to try and protect those that refuse to be vaccinated (noting that some people canāt be vaccinated, making it all the more important for those that can be vaccinated to do so).
I also donāt buy the argument that this is ājust another few weeksā. Children have lost a so much already, and it shouldnāt be so easily dismissed as just a bit more.
No one is suggesting that, but perhaps we can minimise lost time in class through rigorous testing rather than the current default position of sending entire classes to self-isolation for 10 days at a time even if repeated lat-flow and PCR tests are negative.
Iām with you there. That will be a fantastic milestone.
This is the sort of common sense approach I think makes sense, rather than the current reaction to send whole bubbles (which include their teachers) into self-isolation without question:
Right now children are being told to self-isolate and stay indoors for 10 days due to positive tests in their class or teaching groups even if:
The child tests daily with lateral flow tests and they are all negative.
The child tests negative with a PCR test.
The child previously had a confirmed case of Covid, but recovered.
Certainly at one local primary the bubble sizes are in excess of 30 pupils, so individual cases of Covid have a big impact which would be significantly lessened from the above scheme - for those parents that are happy with that approach.
