Early on in the spread of COVID-19, as it became clear that this was not going to be just an epidemic in China but a true pandemic, a number of “mavericks” proposed a radical idea—doing nothing. Or, to be more accurate, doing less than nothing. Instead of attempting to protect the populace from COVID-19, these supposed experts ran with the idea of getting people infected even faster. This, they declared, would hustle the world toward that now tired term, “herd immunity,” and preserve the economy from all the perils involved in actually keeping people healthy.
The U.K. considered making this official policy, and in the process of considering the idea slowed down both testing and restrictions in a way that provided the U.K. with one of the worst results in the world when it came to both case counts and deaths per population. Sweden actively embraced the idea and as a result had a rate of death five times that of Denmark and over 10 times that of Norway. Experts have called the idea of attempting to reach herd immunity both absolutely immoral and likely impossible. It is absolutely a path that places a very low value on human life, and actively promotes the idea that it’s better for old people to die than to have corporations inconvenienced.
In the United States the idea of herd immunity keeps popping up, most recently because it’s being actively promoted by Donald Trump’s new coronavirus task force member, Scott Atlas. But the bigger news may be what the “rogue scientists” behind herd immunity make clear: It’s been Trump’s policy all along.
Martin Kulldorff, Jay Bhattacharya, and Sunetra Gupta (no relation to Sanjay Gupta) have been the principle authors pushing the idea of herd immunity from the outset. Their plan isn’t subtle. In its latest form—known as the “Great Barrington Declaration”—it says those “who are at minimal risk of death” should not just ignore efforts to restrict the flow of the virus but “build up immunity to the virus through natural infections.” Supposedly this comes with increased protection for those at greater risk, though exactly how a massive increase in the number of active cases in the population allows any group to be protected is absolutely unclear.
As The Washington Post points out, the declaration is “not a scientific document.” It has absolutely no data. Not a single footnote. It presents exactly zero evidence to support the statements that it makes demanding that people surrender to illness and death for the betterment of … someone.
What the grandly titled declaration also does not make clear is that this is exactly the approach taken by Sweden. In July, as Sweden’s daily case count declined, fans of herd immunity were ready to proclaim that nation’s experiment a “success” … if you simply ignored how their rate of deaths was massively greater than their neighbors. But the evidence shows that not only did Sweden’s version of the “throw grandma to the wolves” plan result in a massive spike of hospitalizations and deaths, it has not given the population anything like immunity. Since September, new cases in Sweden have increased more sharply than in neighboring nations. In terms of protecting the nation, comprehensive social distancing not only worked to “flatten the curve,” but has generated more lasting protection for the general population than attempts to reach herd immunity.
Both Swedish authorities and the Barrington trio have attempted to deflect attention from all those dead bodies, by claiming that the health effects of lockdowns are even worse than allowing COVID-19 to run its course. To do so, they’ve beat their chest about supposed increases in everything from heart attacks to anxiety disorders. And they’ve completely ignored the fact that COVID-19 has become the third leading cause of death, absolutely swamping any other threat.
As World Health Organization Chief Tedros Ghebreyesus stated on Tuesday, “Herd immunity is achieved by protecting people from a virus, not by exposing them to it. Never in the history of public health has herd immunity been used as a strategy for responding to an outbreak, let alone a pandemic. … Letting Covid-19 circulate unchecked therefore means allowing unnecessary infections, suffering and death.”
Herd immunity is nothing less than human sacrifice to the gods of Wall Street. Period. The burden of this approach would fall not just on the elderly and ill, but on the same people who have paid such a disproportionate price in the crisis so far: Black people, Latino people, poor people of every color; people whose roles have been called “essential” even as they’re given minimal pay and inadequate protection.
Any effort to execute the far from great Barrington declaration would generate unwarranted suffering for millions and unnecessary deaths for thousands, all in the name of preserving something so amorphous they couldn’t be bothered to produce any actual data. Unsurprisingly, not only is this being given fresh support in the White House by Atlas and Trump, it’s also getting a big boost in Florida by Gov. Ron DeSantis. Because, sure, if you’re going to move on a plan that says old people need to die to save money, Florida is the place for that plan.
As National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins said, “What I worry about with this is it’s being presented as if it’s a major alternative view that’s held by large numbers of experts in the scientific community. That is not true. … This is a fringe component of epidemiology. This is not mainstream science. It’s dangerous.”
Still, the most frightening point might be that made by a White House official talking to The Washington Post. “We’re not endorsing a plan. The plan is endorsing what the president’s policy has been for months.” It’s not that Trump is moving toward supporting the immoral, fringe, and deadly plan of herd immunity … it’s that he has been there all along.
A study in the medical journal The Lancet details how the term “herd immunity” entered the medical vocabulary in considering the work of livestock veterinarians looking at cattle and sheep. And that’s just what it takes to accept such an idea: cattle and sheep, willing to march to the slaughterhouse to protect their “betters.”