Foreign Property News | Posted by Zarni Kyaw
More than 6,500 scientists and medics have signed an anti-lockdown petition calling for the UK and US to build herd immunity against Covid-19 by letting the virus spread in young people.
The letter, which was penned by three top scientists and has since been backed by more than 60,000 members of the public, warns that tough social distancing rules are having 'damaging physical and mental health impacts'.
Most of the population, they argue, is not at risk of dying if they catch Covid-19 and efforts should be focused on protecting those who are vulnerable, while letting everyone else get on with their lives as normal.
The letter, named the Great Barrington Declaration after the town in Massachusetts where it was written, is a rallying cry for top experts and politicians to stop running from the coronavirus and to learn to live with it. More than 2,800 scientists have signed the petition, as well as almost 3,800 medical practitioners.
'Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal,' the scientists say, adding: 'Keeping these [lockdown] measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.'
In other coronavirus developments:
Universities began cancelling face-to-face teaching entirely as they stepped up attempts to curb rising infection rates on campuses;
The leaders of four northern cities wrote to Health Secretary Matt Hancock to warn they were ‘extremely concerned about the sharp increase’ in cases;
However, they said they did not want draconian new measures and urged him to hand powers over restrictions to regional leaders;
Figures suggested the outbreaks in university cities were being strongly driven by students;
Reports claimed Mr Sunak was drawing up plans for Treasury support for firms worst hit by new local lockdowns;
Nicola Sturgeon is likely to announce ‘circuit breaker’-style restrictions today despite denying Scotland was headed for another full lockdown;
The Royal College of Psychiatrists warned of a mental health crisis fuelled by the pandemic;
Industry chiefs warned that pubs, restaurants and other hospitality firms were preparing to axe more than half a million jobs;
Nearly one in five state secondary schools in England were unable to fully open their doors last week due to coronavirus.
One of the three authors is University of Oxford professor Dr Sunetra Gupta, who is now renowned for her controversial views on herd immunity.
She wrote the declaration alongside Harvard University's Dr Martin Kulldorff and Stanford's Dr Jay Bhattacharya.
But the petition has been met with concern – one scientist pointed out it doesn't take into account problems other than death, such as 'long covid', and that it overlooks the fact there is no proof that herd immunity is even possible.
It came the same day that figures showed the number of Britons in hospital with coronavirus soared by 25 per cent in just 24 hours.
Figures show the UK has recorded 14,542 more infections - more than triple the number from a fortnight ago.
In another blow to hopes the virus is being brought under control, official NHS data shows there were 478 new hospital admissions in England on Sunday - the most recent day figures are available for.
The figure is 25 per cent increase on Saturday's data, when 386 people were admitted the hospital with Covid-19.
It also represents a four-month high, the likes of which have not been seen since June 3, when the figure was 491.
Data also shows the number of people on ventilators is on the rise, from 259 a week ago to 349 on Sunday.
The rising figures have fueled concerns that the UK could be heading for another bout of lockdown-style restrictions.
A Whitehall source said tougher measures could be imposed in parts of the North before the end of the week. Officials have also refused to rule out further national measures.
In the Great Barrington Declaration the scientists write: '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 [heart] 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.'
They say that elderly people are 1,000 times more likely to die of Covid-19 than children, meaning the two groups should not face the same rules.
'Focused Prevention' could protect the vulnerable – by using care home staff who have already had the virus, for example, by delivering groceries to elderly people so they don't have to go shopping, or by families meeting outdoors instead of inside.
Normal hygiene rules such as regular hand-washing and self-isolation for people who are ill should continue, but life for young, healthy people could go on, they said.
'Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal,' Dr Gupta and colleagues wrote.
'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.'
The herd immunity focus of the declaration will not be met with open arms by all.
Scientists still cannot prove whether people develop any immunity to Covid-19 after catching it the first time.
If it turns out that people regularly get the illness twice or more it may mean that turn the concept of herd immunity on its head. There have been sporadic reports from around the world of reinfection, but the circumstances that allow it to happen are unclear.
For many of the people who are alleged to have caught it twice, scientists suspect their original illness never cleared up or their test results were wrong somewhere along the line.
Boris Johnson and Health Secretary Matt Hancock remain convinced that limiting social interaction is still the best policy and insist they will not allow Covid to ‘let rip’ through society.
But they are under increasing pressure to reconsider, given the damage to the economy and health.
The Government’s own modelling suggests 74,000 people will die from non-Covid causes as an indirect result of the lockdown imposed in March.
One critic of the petition, University of Kent virologist Professor Jeremy Rossman said: '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. Herd immunity relies on lasting immunological protection from coronavirus re-infection.
'However, we have heard many recent cases of re-infection occurring and some research suggests protective antibody responses may decay rapidly.
'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.'
Professor James Naismith, a University of Oxford biologist, said he 'read it with interest' but won't sign the declaration.
He explained: 'We do not know yet how long immunity will last, so achieving herd immunity may not be simple. We do not have herd immunity to the common cold despite many of us having one or more each year.
'It would have helped had the leading scientists who signed this declaration estimated achievability of herd immunity with different immune response decays.
'The desired range for herd immunity is not stated nor how far away we are from it, thus no estimate of the number of deaths or the life changing complications that will result in the lower vulnerability group is made.
'Whilst these numbers are much lower than in the elderly, they are not zero. I suspect the public would like to know this.'
Coronavirus cases are continuing to rise in the UK, with 14,542 new cases recorded on Tuesday - meaning the number of people testing positive for Covid-19 every day has tripled in a fortnight.
Last Tuesday's data, which would normally be used to measure how much the UK's outbreak has grown in the last week, is unreliable due to a catastrophic counting error at Public Health England. It means Tuesday September 22 is the most recent point of reference — there were just 4,926 cases on that date.
The extraordinary meltdown — caused by an Excel problem in outdated software at PHE — meant almost 16,000 cases went missing between September 25 and October 2, meaning the scale of the escalating crisis was vastly underestimated last week.
Health chiefs recorded 12,594 coronavirus cases yesterday, which was also triple the figure of 4,368 recorded a fortnight before. The rolling seven-day average of daily infections — considered a more accurate measure because it takes into account day-to-day fluctuations — has also risen by a similar amount over the same time frame.
Another 76 coronavirus deaths were also recorded on Tuesday, up 7 per cent on last week's 71 fatalities and more than double the number of victims posted the Tuesday before, when there were 35. Data also shows the rolling seven-day average number of daily deaths is 53, up from a record-low of seven in mid-August.
Although the curves are clearly trending the wrong way, the number of Covid-19 deaths and infections are still a far-cry from levels seen during the darkest days of the pandemic in spring, when more than 1,000 patients were dying and at least 100,000 Britons were catching the disease every day
The spiralling statistics come amid fears the UK could face draconian new lockdown measures within days under plans for a local 'Covid alert' system.
Mr Matt Hancock is expected to unveil details of the three-tier set-up as early as Thursday in an attempt to make the existing patchwork of restrictions easier to understand.
Government sources said the top tier would include tougher restrictions than those currently applied to millions of people living across the North and Midlands. A planned 'traffic light' system of measures will be redesigned after PHE's Excel bungle revealed that the virus was spreading much faster than previously thought in cities like Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield. Ministers will meet in the coming days to thrash out exactly how far to go.
Cities including Sheffield, Oxford and Nottingham are seemingly at risk of harsher restrictions as Boris Johnson tries to get a grip on local flare-ups. Options include the closure of pubs, restaurants and cinemas, a ban on social mixing outside household groups, and restrictions on overnight stays. Sources refused to rule out the possibility that some towns and cities could be placed immediately into the top tier, despite the fact that death rates remain low.
Ref: dailymail
