FOLLOW THE SCIENCE: Thousands of scientists & physicians sign letter condemning Democrat's lockdowns

Dr Julian Tang, Honorary Associate Professor in Respiratory Sciences, University of Leicester, said:

“Having watched their video and read their Declaration, I can understand their concerns and their aims, but they are not very clear about how they will carry out their proposed ‘Focused Protection’.

“The interviewer gave a very simple example of a grandparent looking after a school-age child, highlighting one household member (the child) who would not be expected to suffer from COVID-19 much, who would attend a large gathering with other young people on a daily basis, but where the other household member (the grandparent) should be ‘protected’.

“But the reply from Dr. Jay Bhattacharya in the video was not really understandable and had no practical details of how this would be done.

“In fact, this ‘Focused Protection’ approach is used each year during our annual influenza season, where we vaccinate the vulnerable – elderly and those with comorbidities – including pregnancy: and even primary school children who have contact with such vulnerable groups in an effort to further protect the vulnerable:

“And if this fails to prevent influenza infection of the vulnerable groups, we have antivirals like oseltamivir and zanamivir that we can give to anyone who has influenza or in whom we even just suspect influenza (as empirical therapy during the influenza season) to reduce the severity of their illness.

“But we don’t yet have these additional ‘tools’ (the vaccine and antivirals) for COVID-19, to assist with this ‘Focused Protection’ approach.

“A similar approach may also work for COVID-19 one day – indeed a similar vaccination strategy for COVID-19 to that of influenza (targeting the most vulnerable) has already been discussed in the UK: but we don’t have a COVID-19 vaccine yet, nor a more general use antiviral treatment.

“So I appreciate and understand the concerns and the sentiment behind this declaration, and of course other diseases are important and need attention, but without these anti-COVID-19 ‘tools’, I cannot see how they will achieve this ‘Focused Protection’ for these vulnerable groups in any practical, reliable or safe way.”

Dr Rupert Beale, Group Leader, Cell Biology of Infection Laboratory, Francis Crick Institute, said:

“An effective response to the Covid pandemic requires multiple targeted interventions to reduce transmission, to develop better treatments and to protect vulnerable people. This declaration prioritises just one aspect of a sensible strategy – protecting the vulnerable – and suggests we can safely build up ‘herd immunity’ in the rest of the population. This is wishful thinking. It is not possible to fully identify vulnerable individuals, and it is not possible to fully isolate them. Furthermore, we know that immunity to coronaviruses wanes over time, and re-infection is possible – so lasting protection of vulnerable individuals by establishing ‘herd immunity’ is very unlikely to be achieved in the absence of a vaccine. Individual scientists may reasonably disagree about the relative merits of various interventions, but they must be honest about the feasibility of what they propose. This declaration is therefore not a helpful contribution to the debate.”

Dr Michael Head, Senior Research Fellow in Global Health, University of Southampton, said:

“The Barrington Declaration is based upon a false premise – that governments and the scientific community wish for extensive lockdowns to continue until a vaccine is available. Lockdowns are only ever used when transmission is high, and now that we have some knowledge about how best to handle new outbreaks, most national and subnational interventions are much ‘lighter’ than the full suppressions we have seen for example in the UK across the spring of 2020.

“Those behind the Barrington Declaration are advocates of herd immunity within a population. They state that “Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal”, with the idea being that somehow the vulnerable of society will be protected from ensuing transmission of a dangerous virus. It is a very bad idea. We saw that even with intensive lockdowns in place, there was a huge excess death toll, with the elderly bearing the brunt of that, and 20-30% of the UK population would be classed as vulnerable to a severe COVID-19 infection. Around 8% of the UK population has some level of immunity to this novel coronavirus, and that immunity will likely wane over time and be insufficient to prevent a second infection. A strategy for herd immunity would also promote further inequalities across society, for example across the Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities. The declaration also ignores the emerging burdens of ‘long COVID’. We know that many people, even younger populations who suffered from an initially mild illness, are suffering from longer-term consequences of a COVID-19 infection.

“Independent SAGE are among the many scientists who have eloquently pointed out1 the many reasons why these initiatives are ultimately harmful and misleading as to the scientific evidence base. There are countries who are managing the pandemic relatively well, including South Korea and New Zealand, and their strategies do not include simply letting the virus run wild whilst hoping that the asthmatic community and the elderly can find somewhere to hide for 12 months. They have a proactive approach to ‘test and trace’ to reduce the impact of new outbreaks, and good public health messaging from the government to their populations. Ultimately, the Barrington Declaration is based on principles that are dangerous to national and global public health.

1 Independent SAGE report –

Dr Stephen Griffin, Associate Professor in the School of Medicine, University of Leeds, said:

“The Barrington Declaration, as per the recent letter to UK government CMOs, seeks to reduce the impact of interventions taken to combat the SARS-CoV2 pandemic upon healthcare systems and the most disadvantaged amongst our population. This is clearly a well-intentioned movement, and nobody can deny that COVID-19 has highlighted inequality and instability across a great many aspects of our society.

“Sadly, focusing on the pandemic rather than the cultures and environments in which it arose ignores long-standing issues in society that existed prior to, and likely long after the pandemic has passed. Moreover, the means by which the signatories propose to achieve their aim relies upon achieving so-called “herd immunity”, which at best is currently a theoretical concept for SARS-CoV2. By contrast, societal restrictions combined with effective rapid testing measures have effectively curtailed the spread of the virus in several countries.

“The signatories propose that members of the population deemed well enough to endure infection should be allowed to operate normally, enjoying full access to work, education, the arts, hospitality etc. By contrast, those deemed “vulnerable” to severe COVID-19 are to be somehow protected from the infection. This approach has profound ethical, logistical and scientific flaws:

“Ethically, history has taught us that the notion of segregating society, even perhaps with good initial intentions, usually ends in suffering. For want of a better term, the “vulnerable” amongst us come from all walks of life, have families and friends and deserve, fundamentally, to be treated equally amongst society. It is interesting to note that the signatories are not proposing that BAME or other COVID-susceptible groups be segregated along similar lines.

“Logistically, how on earth are we to both identify those at risk and effectively separate them from the rest of society? Basing risk primarily upon risk of death completely ignores the profound morbidity associated with the pandemic, including what we now term as “long COVID”, plus the criteria by which one or more risk factors might predispose towards severe disease remain both uncertain and incredibly diverse – we have only lived with this virus for ten months, we simply do not understand it well enough to attempt this with any surety.

“Scientifically, no evidence from our current understanding of this virus and how we respond to it in any way suggests that herd immunity would be achievable, even if a high proportion of the population were to become infected. We know that responses to natural infection wane, and that reinfection occurs and can have more severe consequences than the first. It is hoped that vaccines will provide superior responses, and indeed vaccination remains the only robust means of achieving herd immunity. Moreover, in the US, with its high end (albeit restrictive) healthcare system, over seven million confirmed infections have occurred to date, yet this represents only a small percentage of that population and no evidence of herd immunity is apparent despite over 200K deaths and untold morbidity. What then, might be the cost of attempting the strategy proposed in this document?

“We are all exhausted by the pandemic and are rightly angry at the notion of potentially enduring a second round of local and national lockdowns or other restrictions. However, we must not conflate the failures of certain governments to capitalise upon the sacrifices people make during lockdowns with these measures themselves being ineffective. Policies are enacted by those that govern, are multifactorial in nature, and so do not mean that contributing strategies are themselves flawed.