Harvard, Oxford, Stanford Docs Among Leaders of Global Anti-Lockdown Movement 340
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Mercury News: Doctors at Stanford University are at the forefront of a global movement of health experts who are criticizing lockdowns to control COVID-19 and say schools and businesses should reopen, but with a focus on protecting the elderly and infirm who are most vulnerable to the virus. Called the Great Barrington Declaration after the western Massachusetts town where it was hatched this month at an economic policy think tank, their statement of purpose is the handiwork of three principal drafters who include Stanford medical professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.
"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," the declaration states. "The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk." Though the arguments are not new, with more than 18,000 medical, science and public health practitioners among its more than 191,000 worldwide online signatories, it represents the largest public break among health experts from their peers' prevailing support for lockdowns since the pandemic began early this year. "Bhattacharya, who drafted the declaration with doctors Martin Kulldorff, a Harvard University medical professor, and Sunetra Gupta, an epidemiologist at Oxford University, has been at the center of the lockdown controversy from the start," the report notes.
"In March, he co-authored a Wall Street Journal opinion column suggesting the new coronavirus may not be as deadly as many believe. The following month, he co-authored a Stanford study that indicated the virus was far more prevalent than presumed and as a result, the death rate far lower. That pre-peer-review study -- which was later revised -- drew withering criticism and even prompted Stanford to review the team's work, which Bhattacharya said he was confident would be vindicated."
"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," the declaration states. "The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk." Though the arguments are not new, with more than 18,000 medical, science and public health practitioners among its more than 191,000 worldwide online signatories, it represents the largest public break among health experts from their peers' prevailing support for lockdowns since the pandemic began early this year. "Bhattacharya, who drafted the declaration with doctors Martin Kulldorff, a Harvard University medical professor, and Sunetra Gupta, an epidemiologist at Oxford University, has been at the center of the lockdown controversy from the start," the report notes.
"In March, he co-authored a Wall Street Journal opinion column suggesting the new coronavirus may not be as deadly as many believe. The following month, he co-authored a Stanford study that indicated the virus was far more prevalent than presumed and as a result, the death rate far lower. That pre-peer-review study -- which was later revised -- drew withering criticism and even prompted Stanford to review the team's work, which Bhattacharya said he was confident would be vindicated."
They are old, they need the money (Score:4, Insightful)
They can't justify the same cost for online courses but the ivy still has to be cut.
Re:They are old, they need the money (Score:5, Informative)
It's actually Charles Koch's money [wikipedia.org] they're taking.
Re:They are old, they need the money (Score:4, Interesting)
It's actually Charles Koch's money [wikipedia.org] they're taking.
I have read on a previous Slashdot thread that the Koch brothers have effectively taken over libertarian politics in the USA. I had not heard of them until recently. As far as I can tell from a quick Wikipedia scan, the Koch brothers' style of libertarianism means freedom for corporations, a free market, freedom from government regulation, and so on. Individual liberty does not get a look in.
This objection to government imposing restrictions on normal life is what I would expect from a movement dedicated to the pursuit of profit at the expense of individual well being. In the UK, many businesses are complaining that their businesses are being ruined by the restrictions government has felt it necessary to apply, in the face of a continuing threat of widespread infection and death. This is not an easy political problem to solve.
I should note that the Koch brothers style of libertarianism, which I might call corporatism, is not the only libertarian view. As far as I can tell, most people in the USA favour individual liberty over being told what to do by government and corporations. So there is a natural kick-back against having their lives disrupted by restrictions on social gatherings, travel, and so on. Much the same happens in the UK, but the libertarian influence is perhaps less strong here.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
^^ This, in spades.
it was hatched this month at an economic policy think tank
So not medical doctors, then?
Funny how economists think that the economy is more important than public health. And the concept hinges entirely on the dubious science of unproved herd immunity for this particular virus.
Notice how people never seem to get herd immunity to the common cold? These economists are wagering a large number of lives on the simple guess that SARS-CoV-2 will cause a lasting immune response in humans.
Re: They are old, they need the money (Score:5, Informative)
From the website itself: https://gbdeclaration.org/ [gbdeclaration.org]
HOW ARE THESE NOT MEDICAL DOCTORS???
Signatories:
Dr. Rajiv Bhatia, physician, epidemiologist and public policy expert at the Veterans Administration, USA
Dr. Stephen Bremner,professor of medical statistics, University of Sussex, England
Dr. Anthony J Brookes, professor of genetics, University of Leicester, England
Dr. Helen Colhoun, ,professor of medical informatics and epidemiology, and public health physician, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Dr. Angus Dalgleish, oncologist, infectious disease expert and professor, St. George’s Hospital Medical School, University of London, England
Dr. Sylvia Fogel, autism expert and psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and instructor at Harvard Medical School, USA
Dr. Eitan Friedman, professor of medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Israel
Dr. Uri Gavish, biomedical consultant, Israel
Dr. Motti Gerlic, professor of clinical microbiology and immunology, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Dr. Gabriela Gomes, mathematician studying infectious disease epidemiology, professor, University of Strathclyde, Scotland
Dr. Mike Hulme, professor of human geography, University of Cambridge, England
Dr. Michael Jackson, research fellow, School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
Dr. Annie Janvier, professor of pediatrics and clinical ethics, Université de Montréal and Sainte-Justine University Medical Centre, Canada
Dr. David Katz, physician and president, True Health Initiative, and founder of the Yale University Prevention Research Center, USA
Dr. Andrius Kavaliunas, epidemiologist and assistant professor at Karolinska Institute, Sweden
Dr. Laura Lazzeroni, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and of biomedical data science, Stanford University Medical School, USA
Dr. Michael Levitt, biophysicist and professor of structural biology, Stanford University, USA.
Recipient of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Dr. David Livermore, microbiologist, infectious disease epidemiologist and professor, University of East Anglia, England
Dr. Jonas Ludvigsson, pediatrician, epidemiologist and professor at Karolinska Institute and senior physician at Örebro University Hospital, Sweden
Dr. Paul McKeigue, physician, disease modeler and professor of epidemiology and public health, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Dr. Cody Meissner, professor of pediatrics, expert on vaccine development, efficacy, and safety. Tufts University School of Medicine, USA
Dr. Ariel Munitz, professor of clinical microbiology and immunology, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Dr. Yaz Gulnur Muradoglu, professor of finance, director of the Behavioural Finance Working Group, Queen Mary University of London, England
Dr. Partha P. Majumder, professor and founder of the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, Kalyani, India
Dr. Udi Qimron, professor of clinical microbiology and immunology, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Dr. Matthew Ratcliffe, professor of philosophy, specializing in philosophy of mental health, University of York, England
Dr. Mario Recker, malaria researcher and associate professor, University of Exeter, England
Dr. Eyal Shahar, physician, epidemiologist and professor (emeritus) of public health, University of Arizona, USA
Dr. Karol Sikora, physician, oncologist, and professor of medicine at the University of Buckingham, England
Dr. Matthew Strauss, critical care physician and assistant professor of medicine, Queen’s University, Canada
Dr. Rodney Sturdivant, infectious disease scientist and associate professor of biostatistics, Baylor University, USA
Dr. Simon Thornley, epidemiologist and biostatistician, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Dr. Ellen Townsend, professor of psychology, head of the Self-Harm Research Group, University of Nottingham, England
Dr. Lisa White, professor of modelling and epidemiology, Oxford University, England
Dr. Simon Wood, biostatistician and professor, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
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The oft-quoted 70% figure for herd immunity is science fiction. We have vaccination rates of 95% for measles and we still get outbreaks.
It depends on how easy it spreads. Measles spreads much more easily than covid [wikipedia.org]
Protecting the vulnerable? (Score:5, Interesting)
This does not explain how the vulnerable will be protected other than by excluding them from the "normal" functioning of society that others enjoy. This sounds more like "banish the vulnerable" so they don't interfere in our fun. Such a plan not only leads to more deaths of young, otherwise healthy people but also is unlikely to result in herd immunity. There is now a confirmed case of Covid re-infection and no proof that immunity is even possible. Also, allowing the virus to cavort uncontrolled in the public only increases the chances of a mutation that is more infectious or more lethal. All this because we don't have the discipline exhibited by New Zealand which has conducted hard shutdowns for short periods and has almost completely eliminated the virus so that society really can function as normal.
Re:Protecting the vulnerable? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Protecting the vulnerable? (Score:5, Insightful)
"If lockdowns work - which arguably they do not". Yes, you could argue that if you ignore all of the facts. Sweden relied on a strategy like these dudes are advocating and the result is that they're the only country in Europe that's shit their pants as bad as the USA has. Not only have they NOT protected vulnerable populations, their economy has suffered worse than any of the surrounding countries that did lockdowns.
These dinks are pitching this like it's something that could work in a country full of morons with oppositional defiant order and an imploding government, and it hasn't even worked in a country with a strong central government and a culture that values civil obedience and the common good. There are literally two perspectives from which this is a functional plan: complete ignorance of how it's worked elsewhere or by placing no value whatsoever on the lives of vulnerable populations.
Re:Protecting the vulnerable? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe we should reevaluate the design of any society that can be disrupted by epidemics because there's going to be plenty more of them in our future.
Don't forget the other eminent scientists (Score:5, Funny)
So many eminent scientists signed this, it's so hard to argue with them
Dr. Person Fakename
Dr Johnny Fartpants
And what is any scientific petition without Professor Notaf Uckingclue
Re:Don't forget the other eminent scientists (Score:5, Insightful)
That's no a good argument, but it *is* an argument that we shouldn't take the number of signers seriously. It's also worth noting that their means of communication is via the financial press rather than via the medical press. Which also isn't proof that they're wrong, but is a rather stiff indication.
For that matter, it has yet to be proven that "herd immunity" is even possible with COVID. For some other corona viruses it isn't possible. I've seen a report that there's a variety of the "common cold" that's a corona virus which people seem to be able to catch every couple of years. (OTOH, the earlier SARS seemed to generate an immunity based on TCells that lasted about a decade or more. But it's not clear that that was a sterilizing immunity.)
All-in-all I think it's an extremely wrong-headed approach given the available data...if it's nothing worse. There's a possibility that it's a good approach, but there doesn't seem to be any real proof, and it could be a very dangerous approach.
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WHAT?! SARS makes you sterile???
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Apparently, you are unfamiliar with what's been (not) happening in Sweden, where the seven day running average in daily deaths has been a single digit for over three months (and less than five since July 26) - without a lockdown. Daily cases have been on the rise recently, but it's been over a month not since that started, with no increase in daily deaths as expected. Sweden's pretty much done with the pandemic, while the rest of Europe - those countries with the tightest lockdowns especially - are seeing a
Re:Don't forget the other eminent scientists (Score:5, Informative)
>And there have been at least half a dozen anti-body studies done now, with increasing credibility, and every single one has found an order of magnitude more people with antibodies than expected.
The first Lancet study from a quick Google disproves your assertion -
https://www.thelancet.com/jour... [thelancet.com]
Seroprevalance for all of Spain is at 5%, just about expectations considering that testing was non-existent in Europe at the beginning of the pandemic. Slightly higher in hotspots, but nothing close to*orders of magnitude".
Re:Don't forget the other eminent scientists (Score:5, Informative)
Sweden, 10 million people, 5,894 deaths, 600-700 new cases a day, and you call that good? Unless you're living somewhere really bad, those are not good numbers, especially with the voluntary lockdown they had which was as hard on their economy as their neighbors who sacrificed much fewer people.
Re:Don't forget the other eminent scientists (Score:5, Informative)
I think you're missing a decimal place. The US has ~30x the population of Sweden, and multiplying their 5,894 deaths by 30 is 176,820, not 18,000.
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BTW, didn't you drop a zero, Sweden, 10 million people, just about 6000 deaths, America, 35 times the population should give about 175000 deaths.
Re:Don't forget the other eminent scientists (Score:4, Informative)
That's absolutely not true.
The US is at 651 deaths/million
Sweden is at 570 deaths/million
http://91-divoc.com/pages/covi... [91-divoc.com]
If the US had equivalent numbers to Sweden it would have roughly 187,000 deaths. You needed another zero.
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Yeah, as a couple of other people pointed out, I dropped a zero. My mistake.
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Well, hooray for percentages, but we have the absolute numbers, too. At present, over 5000 Americans age 25-44 have died from it. Ten times the cases means sending 50,000 young people to their graves.
Normally, that's not a winning public policy suggestion.
Suppose you were suggesting that we put up with a 9/11 every month for a year, in order to help out the jobs picture?
Re: Don't forget the other eminent scientists (Score:3)
Sweden isn't connected by land to the UK. It's death rates are 5x to 10x the death rates of the other Nordic countries. Your blood example is plainly flawed.
Compare like with like.
Re: Don't forget the other eminent scientists (Score:5, Interesting)
Or they will have a second wave just like everyone else "and there's no reason to believe they will other than a sincere desire to not be wrong."
So they are not the worst in the EU, just the fourth-worst. Nothing to be proud of whatsoever. There are 23 EU members that did better.
You seriously accuse others to cherry pick the examples? Even while you cherry pick it way more since Sweden is #14 in the whole bloody world when it comes to the death rate. 14 out of what, 200 countries?
That was only true for Q1. In Q2 Swedish economy contracted by 8.6%. The EU economy contracted by 11.9%. This is nowhere near twice as much.
In countries that test properly the amount of excess deaths is very much the same as the amount of the coronavirus deaths, making you - yet again - a liar. The question is, are you a paid shill or just stupid?
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He is Terry Austin, a known conservative troll who used to haunt Usenet. Apparently, since people in his favourite groups wised up to him, he is now seeking out web forums.
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So, in the end, it seems like the epidemiologists who said, in March, that this would likely follow the same pattern as nearly every other pandemic, with a huge spike in the beginning, followed by a steady decrease, followed by a sharp decrease, with the disease becoming less deadly as time goes on.
Well yes. This happens regardless of if you lock down, or if you try to kill everyone. That was never the question.
The only question was why were those idiots so murderously taking out their own population compared to their neighbours while at the same time doing nothing to prevent tanking the economy.
You can try and reframe it all you want. Sweden is not an example of a success story and it only compares favourable to countries hit hard and early (Italy, Belgium), or countries that are dumbfuck retarded (U
Re:Don't forget the other eminent scientists (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe certain commenters in the Canadian media correctly pointed out - the only people still trying to paint this as a unmanageable disease which will kill hordes of otherwise-healthy-people are Democrats in the US.
Nobody is saying this. They are actually saying it will kill hordes of people.
Just look through this thread, you'll see the same argument. It's because they've had to give up any data or fact-based arguments
On September 23rd Robert Redfield testified "As I mentioned the preliminary results in the first round show that a majority of our nation more than 90 percent of the population remains susceptible"
Over 200k dead at the time of the statement with less than 10% of the total US population infected. Basic math would seem to indicate you are either a willful idiot or don't believe something like a million and a half dead is a big deal.
The daily death rate has not changed as verified cases has grown to over 350K per day, and any onus on debate here needs to be on how that daily death rate ever changes given this long history of trend now. Their both fear and know the truth, it won't. The top line (cases) of that graph will continue to expand, ever-lowering the CFR until it is well below the point where any restrictions make sense at all.
CFR is noise. Most of the tracking websites actually explain the numerous issues with these figures if you bother to take the time to read and understand them.
What matters is assessment of population IFR. Number of people actually infected that go on to die. Not the number of 'cases' from test results officially recorded into a database. There are ongoing tests and completed population tests able to measure a populations exposure whether individuals even knew they were infected at all. Well known for many months number of people actually infected is way way higher than number of cases... an order of magnitude or more higher... the difference is massive and also no surprise to anyone with half a clue.
However, that is not convenient to the Democrats in the US, who need this to be an economic and health crisis like no other, in order to help win an election. Sadly, and scarily, it seems to be the Democrats hoping more people would start dying.
It really is to quote the 46th president "a big fucking deal"... while democraps are certainly leveraging it to scare people into not voting for a clown political bullshit has no actual material effect on underlying reality.
What the hell are you talking about? (Score:3)
Meanwhile Trump got it, got 2 experimental treatments carefully administered by 9 world class doctors, and went on National TV to say it was no big deal because hey, he got better, right?
The reality is literally the exact opposite of what you wrote. How in the hell did you get modded up to +5? No, dea
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Sweden's hospitals were never overwhelmed. Most US hospitals were laying off staff left and right, and still are.
As for treatments available now, you've just agreed that lockdowns are now not only not necessary, but actively harmful.
We were told the lie that lockdowns were to "flatten the curve." Now, the governor of California is talking about what restrictions he intends to make permanent. Lies, lies, and more lies.
Re: Don't forget the other eminent scientists (Score:2)
Gupta is a fraud
more here [theguardian.com]
Never believe a libertarian. Their agenda makes it impossible to be objective or rational.
Re:Don't forget the other eminent scientists (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a Harvard doctor who thought thousands of people were being abducted by aliens because they said so under hypnosis.
https://www.psychologytoday.co... [psychologytoday.com]
Here's an Oxford doctor who thinks invisible aliens are breeding with humans and terraforming the planet via climate change.
https://www.barstoolbets.com/b... [barstoolbets.com]
You can find whacko PhDs in fancy universities who will say all kinds of crazy shit. That doesn't make it science, or true, or worthwhile.
Kill a few million for the Greater Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems about right for an 'economic think tank'
Re:Kill a few million for the Greater Good (Score:5, Insightful)
There is nothing special to Covid-19 here, other than that this risk (for the next few months at least) also affects all first-world countries.
Re:Kill a few million for the Greater Good (Score:5, Interesting)
he co-authored a Stanford study that indicated the virus was far more prevalent than presumed
And it's been shown that not only were they wrong then, but they're still wrong now. Notice this was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association rather than a Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper.
https://www.sciencenews.org/ar... [sciencenews.org]
In an effort to encourage more donations, many blood collection centers have been offering to test donated blood for antibodies to the coronavirus, which indicates a past infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Of the nearly 1 million Americans who donated blood to the Red Cross from June 15 to August 23 and were tested, only 1.82 percent had the antibodies. That finding suggests that the vast majority of Americans have yet to be infected with the virus, researchers report September 14 in JAMA.
Re:Kill a few million for the Greater Good (Score:5, Insightful)
The Red Cross isn't a random sample of people. It's a random sample of people who donate blood and pass the screening to be allowed to.
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That's interesting, I wonder if dialysis patients (which face it are even less representative of the population as a whole then blood donors) are particularly susceptible. They spend long periods of time hooked up to the dialysis machine with people coming in and out, and for a long time it wasn't widely realized that asymptomatic people could spread the disease.
Six million to eight million is a 25% difference, which is not that large considering the type of sampling being done. It seems more likely to me
This is a war (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is a war (Score:5, Insightful)
This is one of the few times where we are at a point that solutions need to be very local and not try to solve it on a national or state scale.
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To do that you'd need a lot more testing than is currently happening. Among other things. You'd also need competent people running things at multiple levels, from the federal down to the census tract. The federal system isn't designed to allow that to happen.
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On top of this, the more complicated the approach, the worse the adherence will be. Wear masks. Keep your distance. Don't go out unnecessarily. Those are much simpler than evaluating your personal risk, taking into account risk factors, and then deciding if you're healthy enough to go out. That's basically what we have now, and people are screwing it up because they don't care. Give them an opening, and compliance will go completely out the window and the deaths will spike.
Re:This is a war (Score:4, Interesting)
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Traditionally, it was marking doors and publishing lists in newspapers in America. And locking people up who flout the rules.
Marking infected (Score:3)
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Perfect is the enemy of good. Policy makers should really be focusing on R0 trends rather than daily infections as a scale,
They should also be focusing on the economic damage already done, and the million of people who are likely to be homeless by this time next year because of it.
But that actually seems to be a goal, to those who insist that lockdowns are a good idea.
Re:This is a war (Score:4, Insightful)
This is one of the few times where we are at a point that solutions need to be very local and not try to solve it on a national or state scale.
Actually the opposite is true.
COVID-19 is a tragedy of the commons. Young people generally don't have much to fear from the virus, but they can impose a huge cost on society by spreading it to more vulnerable individuals. The best way to combat tragedies of the commons is with strong social signals, and those are best communicated at the top level.
What most countries have (and the US is sorely lacking) is a national leadership that says "X is our strategy, now please follow it". It doesn't matter what strategy local governments have if they can't get the public to follow it. And they can't do that if higher levels of government are sending inconsistent messages.
Re:This is a war (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe. Maybe though we could have tested, tracked isolated early on. Done targeted lockdowns whenever there was an outbreak. 2-3 months of very aggressive action, then its over. Basically what China did once they got their act together.
If we just slow things down, then the total number of cases doesn't depend all that much on what policy is adopted.
It was a war. We lost. We are just fortunate that Covid isn't very deadly and we are only facing a few million dead around the world, rather than the hundred million it could have been.
My cynic sense is tingling (Score:2, Insightful)
That said, these codgy old men (who are likely more than well enough off to stay safe on their own) can sod off. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Neither me or my dollars are going back to normal until this pandemic is well and truly under control. And I'm not the only one. So until public policy and/or science fixes this shit then the economy will be crap.
Also, let us all take a moment to reflect
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Pretty much my take also. My suspicion is that these people believe that getting rid of a large number of older people and people that have some risk factors would actually be quite nice (in their morally corrupt thinking). Most of the old and the infirm cannot really be protected, that much should be obvious by now.
Personally, I will work from home until this thing is under control. Fortunately, my main employer cannot do a lot about this (and they may become liable if anybody gets infected in the workplac
Re:My cynic sense is tingling (Score:5, Interesting)
Something is fishy here because it's been pretty well shown that lock downs don't spike deaths [arstechnica.com]
That is some strange article. Looks like it was written by people who have never experienced and cannot really image a substantial economic collapse, and confuse such with some mild dent in growth rate. But even if you think such a collapse is impossible in the US: Just read up on how much more people starving and dying from diseases the WHO already expects in countries where "lock downs" turn poor people into dead people.
I think Arstechnica's writers are Canadian (Score:2)
Lockdown is the only option (Score:2, Insightful)
It didn't have to be, but it is now.
People have shown themselves to be incapable of socially distancing and other very basic tactics that would be critical for lifting the lockdown.
Our idiot president is continuously lying about and downplaying the severity of the virus, causing the above not just from laziness but from outright rejection of facts.
Even if the young healthy people do survive it, there is mounting evidence of long-lasting effects that could burden our health care system for decades. And meanw
Re: Lockdown is the only option (Score:5, Informative)
I think your information about Sweden is about 6 months out of date. Their attempt at relying on social distancing until herd immunity happened was reported as failing, and they were switching to stronger social isolation. And pretty much adhering to the rules. It's not a total lockdown approach, but that isn't needed if people will follow the rules about isolating and social distancing. If they won't, then it is.
https://www.npr.org/2020/09/04... [npr.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Also, Sweden's approach _is_ still very different, as even "wearing masks" is not mandatory, but a voluntary/recommended measure.
Re: Lockdown is the only option (Score:4, Insightful)
There's not a single sentence in your post supported by the facts.
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Population of 10 million, almost a 100,000 cases and 5,894 official deaths with over a death a day sounds like a failure to me. Sure there's bigger failures, but not many.
You cannot "protect" the elderly, stupid. (Score:2)
So stay inside? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Do you expect people earning typically very low wages to quarantine with their clients? Because otherwise the age care workers are going to be infected by their families, and the vulnerable end up dying.
Source? (Score:4, Interesting)
out of ALL the articles in the front page, this is the only one without a source right to the title.
There are links in the text, sure, but they go mercurynews.com (a small San Jose newspaper), and the movement page itself. Not saying it's true, but it's irrelevant. It wouldn't be the first pair of stupid idea a-holes who get out of Harvard and Stanford and happen to meet.
There's no disruptive idea on how to fight this particular pandemic. The pandemic is the disruptive factor. And if there's one thing you know about disruptions, is they not only take some time to show their true potential, but also that when they do, there's hardly a way to counter it once it settles.
Doctors giving economic advice? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Doctors giving economic advice? (Score:5, Informative)
While herd immunity is not completely off the table at the moment, it is uncertain at best. And the price is very high. Some may not mind killing off the old and the infirm (in fact, killing the weak is a fascist standard approach), but not everybody is morally corrupt to this extreme degree.
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Re:Doctors giving economic advice? (Score:4, Interesting)
The long term consequences are real, but people catching it twice within a couple of months are extremely rare...though admittedly we don't know *how* rare, as we're only certain that this has happened if the virus is sequenced on both occasions, and proves to be a different virus strain. If it were the same strain it would appear as if they just hadn't really cleared it from the first time that they caught it, and we know of some cases where THAT happens, also. But it also appears quite rare.
N.B.: This is based on following news sites. I'm a programmer, not a medic. But the medical sites seem to agree with this (or did when it was news).
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Sure we do. Serology surveys have been ongoing and continue to reveal that a much larger portion off the population was innoculated than originally thought.
Citation needed. Every "news" story (if you can generously call them news) that I've read claiming that the numbers are much higher than originally thought have, in fact, provided numbers that are pretty much exactly what everyone was assuming from the beginning, i.e. those journalists just didn't understand the difference between CFR and IFR (which at least for COVID-19 is about an order of magnitude smaller than IFR, if memory serves).
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What??? I just posted a link above showing the exact opposite.
https://science.slashdot.org/c... [slashdot.org]
Less than two percent of blood donations are showing SARS2 antibodies, and that's after they encouraged people to donate by telling them they would inform them of the results of the antibody test. Herd immunity, if it's even possible for this particular coronavirus, requires at least 60% of people to become infected. With the estimated fatality rate of 2% that comes out to four million people that you think sho
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Of course not. If you go to the link you'll find that they encouraged donations by telling people that they would give them the results of the test, so they're *more* likely to have been non-critically sick in the last several months. Link to the JAMA article with more information is in the link as well.
The question of quantity vs. quality of life (Score:4, Insightful)
Whether it is "how fast am I allowed to drive" or "how much natural resources am I allowed to use up to increase my convenience" - there is no "scientifically correct" answer to this, it is a matter of opinion, and of politics, because the preferences of groups collide.
I personally know more elderly than young people, and interestingly, among the ones I know there is a pretty clear preference for "quality" over "quantity", and this may be a rational thought, as their remaining life expectancy is so short that any inconvenient year they have to live through may be their last.
It seems to me that the ones most concerned with potential years of life lost are not the ones most at risk, currently, but middle-aged people with very moderate risks of their own who just cannot stand the thought that their children's partying may later be found to have subtracted some years from their grandparent's lives.
Re: (Score:3)
"A tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive," as C.S. Lewis would say.
It inevitably leads to scenes like this [dailycaller.com] that serves as a reminder of how quickly essential liberties can be sacrificed for the mere promise of added security.
Quantity vs quality? Do we want liberty, or don't we?
Fallacy of appeal to authority (Score:5, Insightful)
"Doctors at Stanford University are at the forefront of a global movement of health experts who are ...." This is a fallacious argument that appeals to an assumption that "doctors at Stanford University" must know what they're talking about. The crux of the article is the appeal to authority because once the "doctors at Stanford" part is omitted, the article is completely unnoteworthy.
The ideas from these doctors might be noteworthy if they actually presented scientific arguments or mathematical models to support their viewpoint. However, their arguments read like political polemics.
Ya going to shut us down or not? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm getting dizzy here.. Masks, no masks, shutdowns, no shutdowns..
It's CLEAR that science doesn't really know what to do here and it's even more clear that what medical science is telling is NOT the only thing to consider here. There are other considerations to weigh.
I have said from the beginning that COVID 19 will be with us until we reach heard immunity, however we achieve it. We cannot stop this. People will be getting sick and a fraction of them will be dying, that's where we are, and it's been th
Re: (Score:2)
It's now time to start arguing for using the vaccines we have in long term test, even if they are not proven effective to CDC standards, as long as they are not immediately shown as dangerous.
One could argue that those who are at the greatest risk of dying from a Sars-Cov-2 infection are also the ones who would be least likely to live long enough to suffer from some rare or "subtle long-term" adverse side effect a vaccination may incur.
Thus it might be reasonable to offer the elderly to become non-placebo participants of the Phase 3 studies, if they are inclined to trade those risks.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm getting dizzy here.. Masks, no masks, shutdowns, no shutdowns..
It's CLEAR that science doesn't really know what to do here and it's even more clear that what medical science is telling is NOT the only thing to consider here. There are other considerations to weigh.
I have said from the beginning that COVID 19 will be with us until we reach heard immunity, however we achieve it. We cannot stop this.
That's true, but the part that you're missing is that we can limit the size of the herd. The purpose of lockdowns is to dramatically reduce the number of people who are at high risk of exposure. If you can keep 90% of the public in their houses, then your total herd is 10% of the population, and hitting 80% (or whatever the latest guess of herd immunity percentages are for COVID-19) of the herd means getting only 8% of the population sick. If we, as a nation, were willing to set policies at a national le
Re: (Score:3)
You are not thinking through this very far. I know it is hard, but do a bit of "what happens then" thinking.
Even during our "lockdown" the virus still spread right? You still had to go to the store for food, at some level our economy was still operating and the virus was still finding new people to infect. There is no way to stop this thing from spreading, even with the most drastic possible measures. There is no possible way to isolate everybody enough to stop it. We can possibly isolate the at-risk po
Re: (Score:3)
You need to open your eyes a bit wider..
Yea, YOU may be able to isolate yourself, but not everybody can. IF everybody was doing what you do, nobody would be able to do what you do, there would be nobody to haul your groceries to your car from the store and there would be nobody to haul groceries to the store in the first place.
Way to completely miss the point, which is that nowhere near 100% of the public is essential, and that every person who can remain mostly isolated is making the size of the herd smaller, which means you reach herd immunity that much faster. And if we changed the way retail operates, making it curbside-only, you'll only have to reach herd immunity in businesses that currently have active cases, i.e. you'll likely reach herd immunity in single-digit weeks, and the virus will then burn itself out.
Unless EVERYBODY isolated for over a month, and I mean EVERYBODY and ISOLATED, this virus will continue to make the rounds and all you are doing by isolating is slowing down the spread.
For a month,
You're not dizzy, you're disingenuous (Score:5, Interesting)
I recognize your sig, and you've been around
'Cuz Leland Stanford... (Score:2)
wants you working on his railroad.
My plan (Score:2)
I think this is irresponsible (Score:5, Informative)
From their declaration [gbdeclaration.org]:
Highlights by me ...
This is irresponsible:
- We don't know how prevalent the long term complications of the disease are. We have reports of mycarditis (heart muscle inflammation), lung damage, kidney damage, neurological problems, ...etc. We can't let the disease rampage through the population and hope for the best.
- We don't know if immunity is long lived. There are some cases of infections for a second time in several cases, which points to short term immunity. And there is no indication of any semblance of herd immunity in hard hit areas (large cities in Northern Italy, Paris, Madrid, New York City, ...etc.). So how can we even discuss herd immunity when we don't know for how long it will last?
This response says it all: WHO head calls herd immunity approach 'immoral' [bbc.com].
Maybe certain things can be done better, but relying on herd immunity like that is not the answer ...
All you need to know (Score:5, Insightful)
where it was hatched this month at an economic policy think tank
Because Wall Street is more important than people's lives. What these folks conveniently forget is all we had to do was 4-6 weeks of a lock down to keep this from spreading and killing the 220,000+ it has so far. Instead, thanks in no small part to the con artist who denied, lied and ignored for those same 4-6 weeks, we are still rolling through daily infections of 50,000 (known) per day and some hospitals are again seeing large numbers of covid patients filling emergency rooms.
Also, if these were real doctors, they would understand what herd immunity is. It is not letting people get infected with a virus so they can build up immunity while others die around them. It is the application of a vaccine to prevent infection. Further, herd immunity generally requires a large percentage of the population to be vaccinated. 80% in the case of polio and 95% for measles. Estimates range from 70% - 90% for covid-19.
Still further, letting some people die while others acquire immunity (and there is no conclusive evidence once you are infected you can't get reinfected) is medically unethical [cbsnews.com].
Hmm ... (Score:2)
Doctors at Stanford University ... say schools and businesses should reopen, but with a focus on protecting the elderly and infirm who are most vulnerable to the virus.
Sounds like older people with tenure want to hedge the bets against younger rivals.
Great stupid declaration (Score:5, Insightful)
My view is that half of this is obvious to all. The other half fails to offer **ANY** supporting evidence or even a workable plan of any useful specificity for implementation.
As immunity builds in the population, the risk of infection to all â" including the vulnerable â" falls. We know that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity â" i.e. the point at which the rate of new infections is stable â" and that this can be assisted by (but is not dependent upon) a vaccine. Our goal should therefore be to minimize mortality and social harm until we reach herd immunity.
No shit. The question is does YOUR scheme work? Where is the evidence? Can it be implemented? At what cost?
The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. We call this Focused Protection.
Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal.
How does this work exactly? How do you effectively stratify and isolate a society by age and health to enable those who are unlikely to become seriously ill not to have to care about an ongoing pandemic with the potential to kill somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.5 million in the US alone?
Are kids kicked out of households containing older or sicker family members? Do old people and diabetics who do the same job you do get forced to take leave or sent off to a bunker to work under a different set of rules than other fellow coworkers? Are they all wrangled up and sent off to live in old sick people camps until the pandemic is over?
To me this sounds like the old harebrained immunity passport garbage where those who have been sick get to bypass all the rules with the aim of reducing harmful effects of response to virus on society. It all superficially sounds interesting except for the small inconvenient truth there is no actually acceptable way to implement it in practice.
Adopting measures to protect the vulnerable should be the central aim of public health responses to COVID-19. By way of example, nursing homes should use staff with acquired immunity and perform frequent PCR testing of other staff and all visitors. Staff rotation should be minimized. Retired people living at home should have groceries and other essentials delivered to their home. When possible, they should meet family members outside rather than inside.
No shit x2... This has been obvious advice for a VERY long time and in fleeting bouts of sanity has even been implemented.
A comprehensive and detailed list of measures, including approaches to multi-generational households, can be implemented, and is well within the scope and capability of public health professionals.
LOL punt the camps for kids and or camps for old sick people question to "public health professionals".... Spout a bunch of obvious shit everyone already knows and then punt the unworkable aspects of your harebrained ideas. What an amazing bunch of academics.
Simple hygiene measures, such as hand washing and staying home when sick should be practiced by everyone to reduce the herd immunity threshold.
No shit x3... Of course these things are not known to make a significant difference.
Schools and universities should be open for in-person teaching. Extracurricular activities, such as sports, should be resumed. Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home. Restaurants and other businesses should open. Arts, music, sport and other cultural activities should resume. People who are more at risk may participate if they wish, while society as a whole enjoys the protection conferred upon the vulnerable by those who have bui
Wth? This was shown to be a hoax last week. (Score:5, Informative)
This "document" was shown to be a hoax last week with no vetting of signatures and many fake signatures.
https://www.veteranstoday.com/... [veteranstoday.com]
"On 3 October 2020, 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 to discuss responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Among them was the distinguished Oxford University epidemiologist Professor Sunetra Gupta, among the most vocal proponents of a âherd immunityâ(TM) strategy.
The Great Barrington Declaration, after the town in which it was created, was drafted by Gupta with two other top US scientists, Professor Martin Kulldorff of Harvard University and Stanford Fellow Jay Bhattacharya. The Declaration itself â" which calls for only the elderly and vulnerable to be quarantined while encouraging young people to contract the virus â" was signed by an initial batch of some 35 scientists.
As of the time of writing, the Declaration claims to be signed by over 5,000 âMedical & Public Health Scientistsâ(TM) and 11,267 âMedical Practitionersâ(TM), along with over 155,000 members of the general public.
The claim that âoethousands of scientistsâ are supporting the Barrington Declaration was reported far and wide by major media outlets from the BBC to the Daily Mail. But when I attempted to check how the signatory process works, I discovered that there was no vetting procedure in place for signatories â" anybody could become a confirmed signatory of the Declaration and be categorised as a scientist or medic by falsifying entry information and ticking a box. By experimenting with the process myself, I was able to add myself as a signatory under the âMedical & Public Health Scientistsâ(TM) category and received an automated email confirming this.â
Hypochondriacs are ruling the asylum (Score:3)
Comment removed (Score:3)
Re:They're Hardly Alone (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: They're Hardly Alone (Score:5, Interesting)
Another thing they have in common is being media whores.
The third thing they have in common is being really REALLY bad at math. WHO said you'd need at least 95% immune populace- and even then you're going to get outbreaks, same as measles, because "the population " is not homogeneous.
And somehow signatories like "Seymore Butz" and Mickey Mouse aren't credible.
They say that they don't have the resources to verify anyone who signs, so it's worthless. Same as their declaration. Basically a blog that anyone can sign a petition to support.
There's going to be plenty of studies on how bullshit like this, like all fake news, spreads so fast. Probably has something to do with the lack of a proper education, even among "academics."
Re: They're Hardly Alone (Score:4, Interesting)
10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Ok, I wonder if such powers *were* delegated... lessee... maybe the Article about Congress? Say, the big list at Section 8?
The Congress shall have Power To... provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States
Seems like that'd catch it, unless of course you're some right-wing nutcase, then you probably think 220M people dying wouldn't qualify.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why would any healthcare worker who takes their job seriously not support a protest against police brutality?
Re:They're Hardly Alone (Score:4, Insightful)
Being a healthcare worker doesn't really indicate a stance on police brutality. Being for or against large public gatherings during a pandemic, though, is something that one might expect a healthcare worker to be more concerned about than an average person.
Re:They're Hardly Alone (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would any healthcare worker who takes their job seriously not support a protest against police brutality?
1. The protests tend to focus on specific incidents that don't accurately represent the general problem of police brutality.
2. The protests tend to frame police brutality as a "race" issue, and many people don't see it that way.
3. The protestors aren't proposing workable solutions.
4. The protests aren't targeted appropriately. We have protests in NYC about an incident that occurred in Minneapolis.
5. The protests often turn into destructive riots, destroying the economic base of poor neighborhoods, and alienating the public.
6. The protests have resulted in corruption of the justice system, including malicious prosecutions and overcharging of defendants by elected prosecutors pandering to the protestors and rioters.
Re: They're Hardly Alone (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Ok, I see your point. It's reasonable for a healthcare worker to oppose protests against police brutality because they sometimes turn into riots, just as it's reasonable to oppose airbags because they sometimes kill people.
Re:You have been lied to (Score:5, Interesting)
but pouting in your corner because they do not cover brutality agaisnt white, when it was multiple brutality against POC which triggered protest is.... Well biased.
US Police Killings by Race Category
Percentage of People Killed (%age of US population)
White: 45.4% (53.54%)
Black: 23.9% (14.77%)
Hispanic: 16.9% (23.12%)
Unknown/Other: 13.8%
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Known POC are 37.89% of the population and make up 36.92% of police shootings.
Hispanics actually do pretty well. Only blacks are disproportionate. Hell, cops like hispanics better than whites. I call it "The Shakira Effect". When you stop a hispanic, and you want to know the truth, just ask his/her hips. They don't like. White people's hips, on the other hand, lie their asses off. It's true.
And what the fuck did an Unknown/Other ever do to you? Damn unknown/otherists!
While the disproportionality of black killings is deserving of protest, what's truly notable is that, as you yourself pointed out, only "POC" (I think you meant "black") killings have triggered protests. Understandable at first, until you realize that 3/4ths of police killings are against someone else. And we don't give a shit about any of them. Not one protest. The majority of people would not be able to name a single victim. Can you imagine only caring about deaths that are fashionable to care about? Would you consider that evil? After all, these tragically unfashionable-to-know folks are people with hopes, dreams, and families too. But because one will not get a pat on the head by the amen-corner for doing so, one doesn't so much learn even one of their names? Maybe we can all agree that no good, decent person would do such a thing.
But why is it that all we hear about are black (not "POC", but black) killings at the hands of cops?
Because out of all of those people, all of those races, nearly 100% of the victims had one thing in common.
Few, if any, were wealthy.
The vast majority were working-class or poor. The overwhelming majority far less privileged than you are.
And that's why the elite media focus like a laser beam on race, race, and only race.
Were the poor across all racial groups to somehow, someway, both realize that their oppressors came from the same ruling-class ... well, then ruling-class will have a problem. Believe me when I tell you that the thought of lower-class cooperation keeps them up at night.
But fear not, you have upper-middle-class, white, suburban college students running around, pointing fingers at poor whites, shouting "white privilege". Janitors, laborers, privates in the Army ... these people all have the same white privilege as white corporate CEOs. Students make zero distinction. After all, every white person THEY know is well-off, so the all pretty much gotta be, right?
Awww, fuck it, why overthink it, a fad's a fad, and nobody is handing out brownie points for truly giving a shit about the disadvantaged. No sir, identity politics is where it's at. Divide and conquer, motherfuckers. With Twitter minting new tools of the corporate elite by the day, they can keep this up practically forever.
So year, fuck those honkies, we depersonalize the unfashionable, this is about POC you racist scumbags! You white-privileged Neanderthals! If you keep it up, we're totally going to cancel you! We're going to cancel you because we, you know, care about people!
You've been warned.
Re:They're Hardly Alone (Score:4, Funny)
never turn out to be police brutality
Back to making shit up again, I see.
Re:Finally... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just remember that the Swedish approach includes universal paid sick leave (Socialism!). Therefore Swedes can afford to follow the recommendations and stay at home with even the slightest symptoms. I would not expect the same strategy to work in a country with unpaid or poorly paid sick leave.
Re: (Score:3)
10 million Swedes, just about 5900 deaths, America, 350 million population, with Sweden's rate would equal just over 200,000 deaths. Considering the Swedes usually listen to their government and have paid sick leave along with good medical care for everyone, they haven't done much better and there economy has still suffered, though being unemployed in Sweden is likely a lot better then being unemployed in America.