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Originally Posted by Justus
Clearly, no one who believes masks are the panacea, and herd immunity is the product of ignorance, has not read the Great Barrington Declaration, available on-line, signed by over 44,000 Medical Doctors and Medical Scientists worldwide.
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For those not familiar with the Barrington Declaration, it is controversial, was drafted last month by three public health scientists who were hosted by the American Institute for Economic Research.
The basic assumptions in the declaration are that children and younger adults have a much lower risk of serious health consequences from COVID-19; herd immunity can be achieved by allowing such lower-risk populations to become infected and thereby achieve natural resistance; older and higher-risk populations should and can be protected from community transmission; and the negative consequences of a shutdown outweigh the negative consequences that would ensue from following this "Focused Protection" approach.
Each of these assumptions is flawed or untested. We don't know what the long term effects of Covid are on young children. It is becoming clear that herd immunity can only be achieved with a vaccine as it appears antibodies drop after several months in previous Covid positive people, making them susceptible to additional infections. And realistically, how can we protect old people? The simple answer is getting people to wear masks and social distance, but taking a look at recent rallies, and even riding around the Square at Sumter landing, it is apparent that masks don't matter to a lot of people. And it is pretty tough to control the interaction of young children and their high risk grandparents. Lastly, no one is advocating a complete lock down. What is being advocated is masks, social distancing, and contact tracing to control the disease and prevent lockdowns from being necessary.The bottom line, major scientific organizations are denouncing the Barrington Declaration, calling it life-threatening and practically impossible. Dr. Fauci called it nonsense.