COVID-19: THE GREAT BARRINGTON DEBACLE

The trio of authors

Tosh.  Let's not beat about the bush.  This proposal is utter tosh.

This week saw the launch of The Great Barrington Declaration.  As it says on their home page "As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call 'Focused Protection'."  

Read on, and "Focused Protection" is a form of herd immunity.

All the right concerns, but all the wrong solutions, as discussed in this BBC article.

 

ALL THE RIGHT ISSUES

For some months I have been warning about the dreadful 'side-effects' of lockdowns.  I published a blogpost on this subject in the middle of August, called unsurprisingly "COVID-19: THE SIDE-EFFECTS OF LOCKDOWNS".

But just like treatments for cancer, the dreadful can sometimes be justified if the malaise justifies it.  Hence my support for lockdowns. But keeping them as light as possible.  I published another blogpost on the same day titled "COVID-19:  WHEN CAN LOCKDOWNS BE JUSTIFIED?"

So I have every sympathy with the authors of the Declaration, the GPs and others who have supported it, and those who have written similarly about their concerns.

 

ALL THE WRONG SOLUTIONS

The Declaration's "Focused Protection" suggests, in essence, that older and more vulnerable people should lock themselves away whilst everyone else gets on with life.  A form of Herd Immunity.

There was a similar suggestion two months back, which I debunked in this blogpost "COVID-19 LOCKDOWN OPTIONS: OVER 50s? UNDER 50s? OR WHAT?"

Since then various new information has become available, so it is worth setting out why such an idea is a non-starter.  As Dr Stephen Griffin, associate professor at the  University of Leeds school of medicine  says "While clearly 'well intentioned', the declaration has profound ethical, logistical and scientific flaws"

Concentrating on the scientific flaws:

• This study of Excess Deaths suggests COVID-19 has a noticeable impact on the over 45s, some or all of whom would effectively need to self-isolate under this proposal
  
• A significant proportion of teachers, on whom schools rely
  
• A significant proportion in the workplace generally, on which the economy relies
  
• Herd immunity makes no mathemematical sense:
• 60% minimum of a population requires either a reasonable level of daily infections for years, or an unfettered level to achieve herd immunity in a short time
  
• An unfettered level of daily new infections would risk quickly overrunning the NHS, even amongst yonger age groups, and a quickly rising death toll
• Worth noting that the Swedish strategy is NOT herd immunity.  They stopped gatherings over 50, which would be one of the best ways of achieving it
  
• We still don't know how long immunity might last. T cells looking more likely than antibodies to provide long-erm immunity, but we don't know the total effect. 
  
• That is all before we consider LongCOVID, which is looking like it affects many more people than die, often for people who were initially not ill enough to be hospitalised.  This is ignored in the Declaration.
  

Then there is the practical aspects of keeping those self-isolating separate from those who are not, which is impossible.  Multi-generational households, for example.  

Let alone the adverse effects on those self-isolating.

The Great Barrington Declaration proposal is utter tosh.