From Lockdowns to Focused Protection

After months of national and state experiments with lockdowns, leading epidemiologists and public health officials call for shifted to “focused protection.” Better protect those at high risk (usually in elder care homes and with immune system problems). Covid experts: there is another way features a discussion with epidemiologists Sunetra Gupta (Oxford), Jay Bhattacharya (Stanford), and Martin Kulldorff (Harvard) (further credentials at link). (Video below.)

These three (and now over 3,000 other medical & public health scientists) have signed the Great Barrington Declaration which explains the science of shifting to focused protection:

Fortunately, our understanding of the virus is growing. We know that vulnerability to death from COVID-19 is more than a thousand-fold higher in the old and infirm than the young. Indeed, for children, COVID-19 is less dangerous than many other harms, including influenza.

As immunity builds in the population, the risk of infection to all – including the vulnerable – falls. We know that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity – i.e. the point at which the rate of new infections is stable – 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.

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.

Epidemiologists say “herd immunity” while others prefer the more people-friendly: “community immunity.” But as in Sweden now, once enough people have been exposed to the coronavirus and develop antibodies or T-cell immunity, there is no longer significant community risk. Protect the unexposed elderly and those with health risks and let the rest of society go on with their lives.

Lockdowns carry their own health risks and now the economic disruption of lockdowns seems to outweigh future risks from the coronavirus. Exposure to the coronavirus by the health in society turns out to be key for future better protection of the elderly and unhealthy.

[Also: The Great Barrington Declaration and Its Critics (AIER, October 7, 2020)]

[And: A Failed Experiment, (City Journal, Autumn 2020)

Related research supports the case for focused protection: the “second wave” of cases in Europe is very different from earlier in 2020. Expanded testing is finding many more who have or had Covid-19, but few get sick, fewer go to hospital, and fewer still go to ICU or die. Medical procedures are improved (ventilators are less used now, for example), plus now more younger, healthier people are testing positive, and few of them are at risk of serious or severe cases.

Plus, amazingly, vitamin-D deficiency is a major contributor to severe cases. Though EU, UK, and US public health establishment continues to resist vitamin-D supplements, fewer people with healthy levels of vitamin-D get infected, fewer have severe cases, and fewer still, almost none, go to ICU or die.

The First Clinical Trial to Support Vitamin D Therapy For Covid-19 (Medium, updated September 27, 2020) explains the clinical study, and video discussion is here Vitamin D, First Clinical Study (Dr. John Campbell).

Here is video from Covid experts: there is another way, a discussion with epidemiologists Sunetra Gupta (Oxford), Jay Bhattacharya (Stanford), and Martin Kulldorff (Harvard).