Great Barrington Declaration

The Great Barrington Declaration
Locationhttps://gbdeclaration.org/
Author(s)Sunetra Gupta
Jay Bhattacharya
Martin Kulldorff

The Great Barrington Declaration is an open letter published in October 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns.[1][2] It claimed harmful COVID-19 lockdowns could be avoided via the fringe notion of "focused protection", by which those most at risk of dying from an infection could purportedly be kept safe while society otherwise took no steps to prevent infection.[3][4][5] The envisaged result was herd immunity within three months, as SARS-CoV-2 swept through the population.[1][2][4]

Signed by Sunetra Gupta of the University of Oxford, Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University, and Martin Kulldorff of Harvard University, it was sponsored by the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), a libertarian free-market think tank associated with climate change denial.[6][7][8] The declaration was drafted in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, signed there on 4 October 2020, and published on 5 October.[2][9] At the time, COVID-19 vaccines were considered to be months away from general availability.[4] The document presumed that the disease burden of mass infection could be tolerated, that any infection would confer long term sterilizing immunity, and it made no mention of physical distancing, masks, contact tracing,[10] or long COVID, which has left patients with debilitating symptoms months after the initial infection.[11][12]

The World Health Organization (WHO) and numerous academic and public-health bodies stated that the strategy would be dangerous and lacked a sound scientific basis.[13][14] They said that it would be challenging to shield all those who are medically vulnerable, leading to a large number of avoidable deaths among both older people and younger people with pre-existing health conditions,[15][16] and warned that the long-term effects of COVID-19 were still not fully understood.[14][17] Moreover, the WHO said that the herd immunity component of the proposed strategy is undermined by the unknown duration of post-infection immunity.[14][17] They said that the more likely outcome would be recurrent epidemics, as was the case with numerous infectious diseases before the advent of vaccination.[16] The American Public Health Association and 13 other public-health groups in the United States warned in a joint open letter that the "Great Barrington Declaration is not grounded in science and is dangerous".[13] The Great Barrington Declaration received support from some scientists, the Donald Trump administration, British Conservative politicians, and from The Wall Street Journal's editorial board.

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference thes was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b c Lenzer, Jeanne (7 October 2020). "Covid-19: Group of UK and US experts argues for "focused protection" instead of lockdowns". British Medical Journal. 371. British Medical Association: m3908. doi:10.1136/bmj.m3908. PMID 33028622. S2CID 222141502.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference gbdfringe was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ a b c Sample, Ian (7 October 2020). "Why herd immunity strategy is regarded as fringe viewpoint". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 10 October 2020. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  5. ^ Herman, Benjamin C.; Clough, Michael P.; Rao, Asha (8 January 2022). "Socioscientific Issues Thinking and Action in the Midst of Science-in-the-Making". Science & Education. 31 (5): 1105–1139. Bibcode:2022Sc&Ed..31.1105H. doi:10.1007/s11191-021-00306-y. PMC 8741556. PMID 35035096.
  6. ^ Ahmed, Nafeez (9 October 2020). "Climate Science Denial Network Behind Great Barrington Declaration". Byline Times. Archived from the original on 10 October 2020. Retrieved 11 October 2020.
  7. ^ Ahmed, Nafeez (3 October 2020). "Koch-Funded PR Agency Aided Great Barrington Declaration Sponsor". BylineTimes. Archived from the original on 14 October 2020. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
  8. ^ Lewandowsky, Stephan (December 2021). "Liberty and the pursuit of science denial". Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences. 42: 65–69. doi:10.1016/j.cobeha.2021.02.024. hdl:1983/eb39f213-982d-4f3c-89b5-8dca6cd3a6cf. S2CID 233195044.
  9. ^ Reynolds, Matt (7 October 2020). "There is no 'scientific divide' over herd immunity. There's a lot of talk of scientists divided over COVID-19, but when you look at the evidence any so-called divide starts to evaporate". Wired. Archived from the original on 7 October 2020. Retrieved 7 October 2020.
  10. ^ Kirkey, Sharon (9 October 2020). "New declaration calls for 'focused protection' to achieve COVID-19 herd immunity. Critics say it would be deadly". National Post. Toronto, Canada. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  11. ^ Staff (9 October 2020). "Herd immunity letter signed by fake experts including 'Dr Johnny Bananas'". The Irish News. Archived from the original on 11 January 2021. Retrieved 16 October 2020.
  12. ^ Staff (6 October 2020). "expert reaction to Barrington Declaration, an open letter arguing against lockdown policies and for 'Focused Protection'". Science Media Centre. Archived from the original on 14 October 2020. Retrieved 16 October 2020.
  13. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Hilldozens was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference GuardianTedros was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ Cite error: The named reference Fox1510 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  16. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference BostonGlobe was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference WHOTedros was invoked but never defined (see the help page).