Update: The Facebook Page has now been restored. You can join CETV here, it’s a platform we created to help combat the censorship and demonetization we’ve experienced.
Dr. Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard University, a biostatistician, and epidemiologist, Dr. Sunetra Gupta, professor at Oxford University, an epidemiologist with expertise in immunology, and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor at Stanford University Medical School, a physician and epidemiologist where are the initiators of The Great Barrington Declaration. The declaration also has an impressive list of co-signers of nearly four dozen doctor and scientists, as well as signatures from nearly 60,000 doctors and public health scientists. Follow their twitter page here.
A few days ago, The Great Barrington Declaration Facebook Page (follow their Facebook Page here) was deleted. I have just received notice that the page has now been-published. It’s hard to know why this happens, and does happen to those who are creating awareness, in a credible way using science and data, that global lockdowns have not been shown to stop the spread of COVID, and that they are causing many other harms.
Bhattacharya is. actually one of four medical professors from Stanford that recently published a study showing that lockdowns, stay at home orders and business closures are not an effective tool for stopping the spread of COVID. There are dozens of other studies showing the same thing. Shortly before this he wrote an article for The Hill explaining damage that goes far beyond economics, and that lockdowns may harm hundreds of millions of people from other causes. You can read that here. Keep in mind, all of this is being done for a virus that has a 99.95 percent survival rate for people under the age of 70.
The Great Barrington declaration argues that there are better ways to protect the more vulnerable. At the end of the day, this isn’t about who is right or who is wrong. Science is being censored, big time, and what we need now more than ever is transparency and a fair representation of what renowned independent scientists in this field are telling us, but that’s not what we are getting. Instead, we seem to be getting one narrative from political scientists like Dr. Anthony Fauci, while scientists who oppose the measures taken by government health agencies seem to be shunned, ridiculed, unacknowledged, ignored and heavily censored.
The Declaration reads as follows:
The Great Barrington Declaration – 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, and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection.
Coming from both the left and right, and around the world, we have devoted our careers to protecting people. Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health – leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden. Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice.
Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.
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.
Adopting measures to protect the vulnerable should be the central aim of public health responses to COVID-19. By way of example, nursing homes should use staff with acquired immunity and perform frequent testing of other staff and all visitors. Staff rotation should be minimized. Retired people living at home should have groceries and other essentials delivered to their home. When possible, they should meet family members outside rather than inside. A comprehensive and detailed list of measures, including approaches to multi-generational households, can be implemented, and is well within the scope and capability of public health professionals.
Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal. Simple hygiene measures, such as hand washing and staying home when sick should be practiced by everyone to reduce the herd immunity threshold. Schools and universities should be open for in-person teaching. Extracurricular activities, such as sports, should be resumed. Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home. Restaurants and other businesses should open. Arts, music, sport and other cultural activities should resume. People who are more at risk may participate if they wish, while society as a whole enjoys the protection conferred upon the vulnerable by those who have built up herd immunity.
Final Thought: Make no mistake, science is being censored at an unprecedented level. I’ve shared this quote many times but I am going to do it again, so I apologize if you’ve already come across it.
Science is being suppressed for political and financial gain. Covid-19 has unleashed state corruption on a grand scale, and it is harmful to public health. Politicians and industry are responsible for this opportunistic embezzlement. So too are scientists and health experts. The pandemic has revealed how the medical-political complex can be manipulated in an emergency—a time when it is even more important to safeguard science. – Dr. Kamran Abbasi, recent executive editor of the prestigious British Medical Journal, editor of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, and a consultant editor for PLOS Medicine. He is editor of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine and JRSM Open. (source)
One positive results of all of the censorship we are seeing is the fact that many people are aware of it. The censorship in itself has truly been a catalyst for more people to question and start thinking critically, as are most global events that are surrounded by “chaos.”
Why do we live the way we live? Why are we so polarized to the point where we can’t even have conversations with each other?
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