luchtschip schreef op 13 oktober 2020 12:06:
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Hier de kritiek van 6 professoren op de Great Barrington Declaration
1
Dr Julian Tang, Honorary Associate Professor in Respiratory Sciences, University of Leicester, said:
"So I appreciate and understand the concerns and the sentiment behind this declaration, and of course other diseases are important and need attention, but without these anti-COVID-19 ‘tools’, I cannot see how they will achieve this ‘Focused Protection’ for these vulnerable groups in any practical, reliable or safe way.”
2
Dr Rupert Beale, Group Leader, Cell Biology of Infection Laboratory, Francis Crick Institute, said:
This declaration prioritises just one aspect of a sensible strategy – protecting the vulnerable – and suggests we can safely build up ‘herd immunity’ in the rest of the population. This is wishful thinking. It is not possible to fully identify vulnerable individuals, and it is not possible to fully isolate them. Furthermore, we know that immunity to coronaviruses wanes over time, and re-infection is possible – so lasting protection of vulnerable individuals by establishing ‘herd immunity’ is very unlikely to be achieved in the absence of a vaccine. Individual scientists may reasonably disagree about the relative merits of various interventions, but they must be honest about the feasibility of what they propose. This declaration is therefore not a helpful contribution to the debate.”
3
Dr Michael Head, Senior Research Fellow in Global Health, University of Southampton, said:
“The Barrington Declaration is based upon a false premise – that governments and the scientific community wish for extensive lockdowns to continue until a vaccine is available. Lockdowns are only ever used when transmission is high, and now that we have some knowledge about how best to handle new outbreaks, most national and subnational interventions are much ‘lighter’ than the full suppressions we have seen for example in the UK across the spring of 2020.
Ultimately, the Barrington Declaration is based on principles that are dangerous to national and global public health.
Dr Stephen Griffin, Associate Professor in the School of Medicine, University of Leeds, said:
the means by which the signatories propose to achieve their aim relies upon achieving so-called “herd immunity”, which at best is currently a theoretical concept for SARS-CoV2. By contrast, societal restrictions combined with effective rapid testing measures have effectively curtailed the spread of the virus in several countries.
the dangers of seizing upon dissatisfaction and political failings to support what amounts to little more than an ideology, runs the risk of inaction and an ensuing limbo of cyclical epidemic waves of infection for the foreseeable future.”
4
Dr Simon Clarke, Associate Professor of Cellular Microbiology at the University of Reading, said:
"There is no current evidence about COVID-19 to suggest that a long-term passive approach has any merit. Despite the huge advances in our understand of the coronavirus and resulting infection, we don’t know that herd immunity is even possible.
"There is also the fact that we haven’t properly got to grips with how to shield vulnerable populations adequately and neither do we have the capacity in the UK to test for asymptomatic infections. Furthermore, we’re also still only scratching the surface of how the virus is transmitted.”
5
Prof James Naismith FRS FRSE FMedSci, Director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute, and University of Oxford, said:
“The main signatories include many accomplished scientists and I read it with interest. I will not be signing it however.
"The authors have neglected to point out that our ability to treat covid19 is greatly improving due to scientific and medical breakthroughs, a point that strengthens arguments for their policy by reducing the toll of the virus.
“That said, the declaration omits some rather critical scientific information that would help better inform policy makers.
6
Prof Jeremy Rossman, Honorary Senior Lecturer in Virology, University of Kent, said:
The Great Barrington Declaration attempts to alleviate these impacts by promoting herd immunity and the protection of vulnerable populations. Unfortunately, this declaration ignores three critical aspects that could result in significant impacts to health and lives.
First,
we still do not know if herd immunity is possible to achieve.
Second,
the declaration focuses only on the risk of death from COVID-19 but ignores the growing awareness of long-COVID, that many healthy young adults with ‘mild’ COVID-19 infections are experiencing protracted symptoms and long-term disability.
Third,
countries that have forgone lockdown restrictions in favour of personal responsibility and focused protection of the elderly, such as Sweden, were not able to successfully protect the vulnerable population.
While there is clearly a need to support and ease the physical and mental health burdens many are suffering under, the proposed declaration is both unlikely to succeed and puts the long-term health of many at risk.”
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