Mounting Medical Opposition to Virus Lockdowns

"We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus."

"The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganize, regroup, rebalance  your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted. But by and large, we'd rather not do it."

"This is a terrible, ghastly global catastrophe, actually. And so we really do appeal to all world leaders. Stop using lockdown as your primary control method, develop better systems for doing it, work together and learn from each other. But remember -- lockdowns just have one consequence that you must never ever belittle, and that is making poor people an awful lot poorer."

David Nabarro, special envoy on COVID-19, World Health Organization 

"[Lockdowns are causing] irreparable damage. 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. Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice." 

"Fortunately, our understanding of the virus is growing. We know that vulnerability to death from     COVID-29 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."

"[Public health officials should aim to protect the most vulnerable population, while allowing those who are not vulnerable to] resume life as normal."

"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."

"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."

The Great Barrington Declaration

After the authors of a declaration promoting herd immunity spoke to White House officials last week, the scientific community immediately called into question the declaration as well as the scientists who wrote it.

"I personally think that herd immunity is inevitable, rather than a strategy."

"We need to do it ... good job of testing and chasing down cases in closed or vulnerable group settings such as long-term care [homes]."

Dr.Neil Rau, medical doctor, assistant professor, department of medicine, University of Toronto

"The idea of selective protection of the elderly and vulnerable is unethical and simply not possible, as there is no way to sustainably protect such a large group of people without imposing huge risks to their mental and physical health."

"Yes, the elderly are significantly more likely to get seriously ill from the virus, but we have seen grave impacts across all age groups."

"Managing the virus is a near impossible balancing act."

Dr.Robert Lechler, president, Academy of Medical Sciences, London

Medical professionals across the world are increasingly taking to alerting governments and policy makers of the harms inherent in total lockdowns of society, beyond the initial lockdowns that took place when the SARS-CoV-2 virus began circulating as a mysterious new respiratory illness whose properties aside from its high infectivity rate were uncertain but clearly ultra-threatening. It is now being recognized that those total lockdowns came with serious side-effects to the general public.

 

In early October the WHO's special envoy on COVID management made an urgent appeal to world leaders to put a stop to the use of lockdowns as their foundational method of control against the spread of the highly infectious virus. The lockdowns are well known to have had a profound effect on the world economy, but Dr.Nabarro in particular stressed the negative effect among poorer countries.While ostensibly seeking to protect vulnerable populations the overall side effects have been utterly destabilizing.

Coincidentally, again in early October three epidemiologists from Harvard, Oxford and Stanford co-wrote a declaration they called the Great Barrington Declaration claiming that lockdowns result in creating worse cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings, lower childhood vaccination rates, and deteriorating mental health situation, issues that will lead to high mortality rates in years to come. The co-authors are Dr.Martin Killdorff, Harvard professor and epidemiologist; Dr.Sunetra Gupta, Oxford University professor with expertise in immunology; and Dr.Jay Bhattacharya, Stanford University Medical School professor with expertise in infectious disease and vulnerable populations.

Other medical professionals, along with members of the public were invited to place their names on the declaration in an online petition, to which 35 other doctors and professors responded, including biophysicist Michael Levitt, professor at Stanford University, winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. A counter on the website as of October 14 indicated over 25,000 medical practitioners around 9,500 public health scientists, and over 440,000 members of the general public have also signed the declaration.

Signing medical professionals state their opinion that rather than imposing strict lockdowns until a vaccine becomes available, the focus should be on minimizing mortality and social harm until such time as herd immunity is achieved, when most of a population becomes immune to an infectious disease, providing indirect protection to those who are not yet immune. Public health officials, according to the declaration, should aim to protect the most vulnerable in a population, permitting those not vulnerable to "resume life as normal".

Examples of measures to protect the vulnerable can be inclusive of minimizing staff rotations at nursing homes, delivering groceries and other essentials to retired people living at home, and having the elderly meet with their family members in an exterior environment preferably to indoors, when possible. Everyone, measures emphasized, should take simple hygienic measures like hand-washing and remaining home when ill to reduce the herd immunity thresholds, while low-risk adults should work normally rather than from home; schools should be open for in-person teaching, and extracurricular activities like sports be resumed.

Among those who criticize the value of the declaration, Dr.Irfan Dhalia, general internist and vice-president at Unity Health which operates two hospitals in Toronto, stated that herd immunity cannot be reached "without a massive loss of life or a vaccine". A group of twenty doctors wrote to the Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, arguing against a return to lockdowns in late September when it became clear that COVID-19 cases were rising again, steeply. "Lockdowns have been shown not to eliminate the virus", the letter pointed out.

 

Research showing declining antibodies over time does not necessarily mean there is somehow less of a chance that we'll be able to develop safe and effective vaccines in the coming months. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The co-signers of the letter include professors of medicine from the University of Toronto, McMaster University and the University of Ottawa, along with different hospitals all of whom agree that lockdowns slow down the virus spread only as long as they happen to be in place: "This creates a situation where there is no way to end the lockdown, and society cannot move forward in vitally important ways including in the health sector, the economy and other critically important instrumental goods including education, recreation, and healthy human social interactions".

Cancelled surgeries, delayed diagnosis for cancer patients, school closures should all be taken into account, resulting from lockdowns. As well as other negative health effects, such as a 40 percent increase in overdoses seen in some jurisdictions, they wrote.

"In Ontario and other parts of the world, such as the European Union, increasing case loads are not necessarily translating into unmanageable levels of hospitalizations and ICU admissions. While we understand the concerns that these cases could spill into vulnerable communities, we also need to balance the actual risk."

"Our society has borne enormous pain over the past six months. It's time to do something different."

Group Medical Letter to Premier of Ontario

A study published in the British Medial Journal in early October states that while initial restrictions were effective in reducing the burden in intensive care units in U.K. hospitals, maintaining the lockdowns would prolong the pandemic and increase the number of deaths. "The model predicted that school closures and isolation of younger people would increase the total number of deaths, albeit postponed to a second and subsequent waves", the study concluded based on data used by the British government in March when it imposed its lockdown.