[Bill14564]

Originally Posted by 8notes

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.

Herd Immunity simply means there is enough immunity in the community that a virus stops spreading. Vaccinating the population is one method of reaching herd immunity. Exposing a large segment of the population to the virus to allow them to become immune is a much more controversial approach.

I suspect in six months or so the same comments will be made and questions raised about the vaccination program:

• Will enough of the population take the vaccine?
• How long does the immunity it creates really last?
• Is it safe / do people survive taking it?
• Will there be long term effects from taking it? How can you be sure?
• How will we know who has taken it and developed immunity?
• How do we protect the people who won't or can't take it?

I'm not advocating against masks or the eventual vaccine. On the contrary, wearing masks, even if it turns out they are not effective, at least shows that people are taking the virus seriously. If an effective vaccine comes out in a few months, that's great. But in the meantime, I think "science" needs to be open to all reasonable possibilities and not look to a vaccine as *only* viable solution.