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In our continued fisking, let's take a look at the http://covidfaq.co section on the Great Barrington Declaration.
Let's start with the first passage, which basically argues the GBD herd immunity approach is rendered obsolete by the vaccine.
Setting aside the atrociously slow vaccine rollout for a moment, note that this framing presents a false dichotomy of natural vs. vaccine immunity.
Setting aside the atrociously slow vaccine rollout for a moment, note that this framing presents a false dichotomy of natural vs. vaccine immunity.
Yet if we look at http://gbdeclaration.org , it's already clear that they're misrepresenting the GBD's position on vaccination. The two work in complementary ways & vaccines have always been contemplated as having an important role in getting to herd immunity.
This isn't just the GBD either - it's what the latest scientific evidence says about immunity. https://www.ft.com/content/929ef3cd-8611-49b2-9f23-918dc3470166
Claim 2 of the covidFAQ site asserts that we don't really know how to shield the vulnerable - a premise of focused protection. This is an interesting criticism, except it's not based in reality.
Note that the CovidFAQ site completely sidesteps the single biggest vulnerability that needs such protection: nursing homes.
Despite housing less than 1% of the pop, nursing homes account for an astounding ~40% of all US covid deaths (NY underreports). https://covidtracking.com/data/longtermcare
Despite housing less than 1% of the pop, nursing homes account for an astounding ~40% of all US covid deaths (NY underreports). https://covidtracking.com/data/longtermcare
How to nursing homes? The first step is to minimize staff rotations, stop readmissions of covid positive patients, and reduce other outside transmission. Other option that's been deployed with success: house staff on site. Could even be subsidized! https://www.connecticutmag.com/health-and-science/inside-the-connecticut-assisted-living-facility-where-covid-never-had-a-chance/article_22ad4694-c053-11ea-bba7-236a56535338.html
Multigenerational households are trickier, although they are also a much less acute vulnerability than nursing homes (again: 40% of all US covid deaths). But note how the covidFAQ site treats this: they lie about the GBD and claim its authors never addressed this!
That claim, however, is false. It takes all of 5 seconds on http://gbdeclaration.org to find a detailed policy brief outlining specific focused protection measures for nursing homes, multi-gen households, and other vulnerable populations. https://gbdeclaration.org/focused-protection/
Or you can go to http://aier.org and find dozens of articles detailing specifics about the nursing home problem, focused protection strategies, and similar.
(Hint: I wrote one on this very subject today and will likely post it soon)
(Hint: I wrote one on this very subject today and will likely post it soon)
So now we've seen that http://covidFAQ.co (1) misrepresents the GBD's position on vaccines and (2) lies about the GBD's proposals on how to implement focused protection. What about the next claim?
They turn to 65+ populations to suggest it's simply too large to protect:
They turn to 65+ populations to suggest it's simply too large to protect:
First, let's use a little logic. The covidFAQ folks want us to believe that (1) ~15 million elderly (UK) is too large & unwieldy to isolate in their homes but (2) doing the same thing to the entire ~66 million population with recurring general lockdowns is just fine and dandy?
But the covidFAQ site's argument here is also a strawman (as in the logical fallacy, not the alternative name that they use to deny their intentions of locking down right before they lockdown again).
Nobody from the GBD is saying seniors should be "required" to self-isolate, which leads us to another misrepresentation in the covidFAQ's text!
We do say 65+ should take precautions and urge basic measures to support their ability to do so, including food delivery, PPE provision, frequent testing availability for seniors, & discouraging outside visitors.
Again, all of this is laid out on the GBD website, which apparently the covidFAQ folks didn't bother to even read. https://gbdeclaration.org/frequently-asked-questions/
Claim 4 on the covidFAQ is just a crude extrapolation of projected deaths that would supposedly happen under focused protection. Note that this simply assumes focused protection would fail, whereas that the alternative they prefer (lockdowns) would not.
Yet look at the stats. Mortality is *already* rampant among pensioners. A full 75% of UK's 87,000 covid deaths are elderly. Same in most other countries. Proving a counterfactual is hard, but we know lockdowns have performed horribly at protecting elderly. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/coronaviruscovid19roundup/2020-03-26
Points 5-7 on the CovidFAQ GBD website veer off into increasingly speculative territory. We see tropes about catastrophic healthcare system collapse (which hasn't happened in non-lockdown countries and states - even hard-hit places like the Dakotas or Sweden)
We get more tropes about "long COVID" among the young. We get a strange bout of herd immunity denialism that they "cite" to...some guy's twitter thread. And it all wraps up with a link to the deeply confused and badly misnamed pro-lockdown John Snow Memorandum.
I'll leave it to others to address those last points in detail if they see fit, but seeing as they trail off into speculation-augmented normative claims, it isn't even worth my time.
So to summarize: the http://covidFAQ.co "take" on the GBD gives us
1. Multiple misrepresentations of the GBD's stances
2. Outright lies about the GBD's policy proposals
3. Few signs that the covidFAQ authors even bothered to read the GBD's website, let alone engage it.
1. Multiple misrepresentations of the GBD's stances
2. Outright lies about the GBD's policy proposals
3. Few signs that the covidFAQ authors even bothered to read the GBD's website, let alone engage it.
