Harvard, Oxford, Stanford Docs Among Leaders of Global Anti-Lockdown Movement

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Mercury News: Doctors at Stanford University are at the forefront of a global movement of health experts who are criticizing lockdowns to control COVID-19 and say schools and businesses should reopen, but with a focus on protecting the elderly and infirm who are most vulnerable to the virus. Called the Great Barrington Declaration after the western Massachusetts town where it was hatched this month at an economic policy think tank, their statement of purpose is the handiwork of three principal drafters who include Stanford medical professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.

"As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists, we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies," the declaration states. "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." Though the arguments are not new, with more than 18,000 medical, science and public health practitioners among its more than 191,000 worldwide online signatories, it represents the largest public break among health experts from their peers' prevailing support for lockdowns since the pandemic began early this year. "Bhattacharya, who drafted the declaration with doctors Martin Kulldorff, a Harvard University medical professor, and Sunetra Gupta, an epidemiologist at Oxford University, has been at the center of the lockdown controversy from the start," the report notes.

"In March, he co-authored a Wall Street Journal opinion column suggesting the new coronavirus may not be as deadly as many believe. The following month, he co-authored a Stanford study that indicated the virus was far more prevalent than presumed and as a result, the death rate far lower. That pre-peer-review study -- which was later revised -- drew withering criticism and even prompted Stanford to review the team's work, which Bhattacharya said he was confident would be vindicated."

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