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Why I spoke out against lockdowns.


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2021 Jul 29, 5:46am   611 views  12 comments

by Al_Sharpton_for_President   ➕follow (5)   💰tip   ignore  

I had no choice but to speak out against lockdowns. As a public-health scientist with decades of experience working on infectious-disease outbreaks, I couldn’t stay silent. Not when basic principles of public health are thrown out of the window. Not when the working class is thrown under the bus. Not when lockdown opponents were thrown to the wolves. There was never a scientific consensus for lockdowns. That balloon had to be popped.

Two key Covid facts were quickly obvious to me. First, with the early outbreaks in Italy and Iran, this was a severe pandemic that would eventually spread to the rest of the world, resulting in many deaths. That made me nervous. Second, based on the data from Wuhan, in China, there was a dramatic difference in mortality by age, with over a thousand-fold difference between the young and the old. That was a huge relief. I am a single father with a teenager and five-year-old twins. Like most parents, I care more about my children than myself. Unlike the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, children had much less to fear from Covid than from annual influenza or traffic accidents. They could get on with life unharmed — or so I thought.

For society at large, the conclusion was obvious. We had to protect older, high-risk people while younger low-risk adults kept society moving.

But that didn’t happen. Instead, schools closed while nursing homes went unprotected. Why? It made no sense. So, I picked up a pen. To my surprise, I could not interest any US media in my thoughts, despite my knowledge and experience with infectious-disease outbreaks. I had more success in my native Sweden, with op-eds in the major daily newspapers, and, eventually, a piece in spiked. Other like-minded scientists faced similar hurdles.

Instead of understanding the pandemic, we were encouraged to fear it. Instead of life, we got lockdowns and death. We got delayed cancer diagnoses, worse cardiovascular-disease outcomes, deteriorating mental health, and a lot more collateral public-health damage from lockdown. Children, the elderly and the working class were the hardest hit by what can only be described as the biggest public-health fiasco in history.

Throughout the 2020 spring wave, Sweden kept daycare and schools open for every one of its 1.8million children aged between one and 15. And it did so without subjecting them to testing, masks, physical barriers or social distancing. This policy led to precisely zero Covid deaths in that age group, while teachers had a Covid risk similar to the average of other professions. The Swedish Public Health Agency reported these facts in mid-June, but in the US lockdown proponents still pushed for school closures.

In July, the New England Journal of Medicine published an article on ‘reopening primary schools during the pandemic’. Shockingly, it did not even mention the evidence from the only major Western country that kept schools open throughout the pandemic. That is like evaluating a new drug while ignoring data from the placebo control group.

With difficulty publishing, I decided to use my mostly dormant Twitter account to get the word out. I searched for tweets about schools and replied with a link to the Swedish study. A few of these replies were retweeted, which gave the Swedish data some attention. It also led to an invitation to write for the Spectator. In August, I finally broke into the US media with a CNN op-ed against school closures. I know Spanish, so I wrote a piece for CNN-Español. CNN-English was not interested.

Something was clearly amiss with the media. Among infectious-disease epidemiology colleagues that I know, most favour focused protection of high-risk groups instead of lockdowns, but the media made it sound like there was a scientific consensus for general lockdowns.

In September, I met Jeffrey Tucker at the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), an organisation I had never heard of before the pandemic. To help the media gain a better understanding of the pandemic, we decided to invite journalists to meet with infectious-disease epidemiologists in Great Barrington, New England, to conduct more in-depth interviews. I invited two scientists to join me, Sunetra Gupta from the University of Oxford, one of the world’s pre-eminent infectious-disease epidemiologists, and Jay Bhattacharya from Stanford University, an expert on infectious diseases and vulnerable populations. To the surprise of AIER, the three of us also decided to write a declaration arguing for focused protection instead of lockdowns. We called it the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD).

Opposition to lockdowns had been deemed unscientific. When scientists spoke out against lockdowns, they were ignored, considered a fringe voice, or accused of not having proper credentials. We thought it would be hard to ignore something authored by three senior infectious-disease epidemiologists from what were three respectable universities. We were right. All hell broke loose. That was good.

Some colleagues threw epithets at us like ‘crazy’, ‘exorcist’, ‘mass murderer’ or ‘Trumpian’. Some accused us of taking a stand for money, though nobody paid us a penny. Why such a vicious response? The declaration was in line with the many pandemic preparedness plans produced years earlier, but that was the crux. With no good public-health arguments against focused protection, they had to resort to mischaracterisation and slander, or else admit they had made a terrible, deadly mistake in their support of lockdowns.

Some lockdown proponents accused us of raising a strawman, as lockdowns had worked and were no longer needed. Just a few weeks later, the same critics lauded the reimposition of lockdowns during the very predictable second wave. We were told that we had not specified how to protect the old, even though we had described ideas in detail on our website and in op-eds. We were accused of advocating a ‘let it rip’ strategy, even though focused protection is its very opposite. Ironically, lockdowns are a dragged-out form of a let-it-rip strategy, in which each age group is infected in the same proportion as a let-it-rip strategy.

When writing the declaration, we knew we were exposing ourselves to attacks. That can be scary, but as Rosa Parks said: ‘I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.’ Also, I did not take the journalistic and academic attacks personally, however vile – and most came from people I had never even heard of before. The attacks were not primarily addressed at us anyhow. We had already spoken out and would continue to do so. Their main purpose was to discourage other scientists from speaking out.

In my twenties, I risked my life in Guatemala working for a human-rights organisation called Peace Brigades International. We protected farmers, unionised workers, students, religious organisations, women’s groups and human-rights defenders who were threatened, murdered, and disappeared by military death squads. While the courageous Guatemalans I worked with faced much more danger, the death squads did once throw a hand grenade into our house. If I could do that work then, why should I not now take much smaller risks for people here at home? When I was falsely accused of being a Koch-funded right-winger, I just shrugged – typical behaviour by both establishment servants and armchair revolutionaries.

After the Great Barrington Declaration, there was no longer a lack of media attention on focused protection as an alternative to lockdowns. On the contrary, requests came from across the globe. I noticed an interesting contrast. In the US and UK, media outlets were either friendly with softball questions or hostile with trick questions and ad hominem attacks. Journalists in most other countries asked hard but relevant and fair questions, exploring and critically examining the Great Barrington Declaration. I think that is how journalism should be done.

While most governments continued with their failed lockdown policies, things have moved in the right direction. More and more schools have reopened, and Florida rejected lockdowns in favour of focused protection, partly based on our advice, without the negative consequences that the lockdowners predicted.

With the lockdown failures increasingly clear, attacks and censorship have increased rather than decreased: Google-owned YouTube censored a video from a roundtable with Florida governor Ron DeSantis, where my colleagues and I stated that children do not need to wear masks; Facebook closed the GBD account when we posted a pro-vaccine message arguing that older people should be prioritised for vaccination; Twitter censored a post when I said that children and those already infected do not need to be vaccinated; and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) removed me from a vaccine-safety working group when I argued that the Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine should not be withheld from older Americans.

Twitter even locked my account for writing that:

‘Naively fooled to think that masks would protect them, some older high-risk people did not socially distance properly, and some died from Covid because of it. Tragic. Public-health officials/scientists must always be honest with the public.’

This increased pressure may seem counterintuitive, but it is not. Had we been wrong, our scientific colleagues might have taken pity on us and the media would have gone back to ignoring us. Being correct means that we embarrassed some immensely powerful people in politics, journalism, big tech and science. They are never going to forgive us.

That is not what matters, though. The pandemic has been a great tragedy. A 79-year-old friend of mine died from Covid, and a few months later his wife died from cancer that was not detected in time to initiate treatment. While deaths are inevitable during a pandemic, the naive but mistaken belief that lockdowns would protect the old meant that governments did not implement many standard focused-protection measures. The dragged-out pandemic made it harder for older people to protect themselves. With a focused-protection strategy, my friend and his wife might be alive today, together with countless other people around the world.

Ultimately, lockdowns protected young low-risk professionals working from home – journalists, lawyers, scientists, and bankers – on the backs of children, the working class and the poor. In the US, lockdowns are the biggest assault on workers since segregation and the Vietnam War. Except for war, there are few government actions during my life that have imposed more suffering and injustice on such a large scale.

As an infectious-disease epidemiologist, I had no choice. I had to speak up. If not, why be a scientist? Many others who bravely spoke could comfortably have stayed silent. If they had, more schools would still be closed, and the collateral public-health damage would have been greater. I am aware of many fantastic people fighting against these ineffective and damaging lockdowns, writing articles, posting on social media, making videos, talking to friends, speaking up at school board meetings, and protesting in the streets. If you are one of them, it has truly been an honour to work with you on this effort together. I hope that we will one day meet in person and then, let’s dance together. Danser encore!

Martin Kulldorff is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/06/04/why-i-spoke-out-against-lockdowns/amp/?__twitter_impression=true



Comments 1 - 12 of 12        Search these comments

1   FortWayneAsNancyPelosiHaircut   2021 Jul 29, 5:59am  

I know what he means, it's fucking insane that to find this information we have to know websites to go to. Because it is censored on all government and their corporate partner media. Censorship and cancel culture is dominant still. You speak up, and you matter.... you get cancelled. It's fucked up. Fucking Google too, assholes.

Government is ruling us by fear right now, and too fucking many Americans are scared (because propaganda works). When in CA I go outside and although maybe about half of the people dont give a shit about masks or covid, the others I still see have fear in their eyes.
2   Shaman   2021 Jul 29, 8:44am  

So the author makes a cogent case against lockdowns and school closures. He was ahead of the media and TBTB on this and still remains somewhat a Jeremiah crying in the wilderness while media continues to censor truth with abandon. Why did he never wonder why? Why suppress all treatments for Covid? Why only offer a vaccine as “treatment” for Covid and ignore the benefits of natural immunity? Why push the vaccine even as it becomes obvious that it’s not very protective against the delta variant? Why suppress the hundreds of thousands of crippling and even fatal adverse reactions to the vaccine? Why not give people the choice and the best information instead of censoring, refusing to collect the info (CDC), and shaming people for being concerned about the risk the unproven Covid vaccines pose? Why attempt to strong-arm people into participating in a medical experiment?
Why not let people make their own choice instead of trying to force them to get the “jab?”

From the beginning this has NOT been about public health. The only motive of our leadership that fits their actions is to prepare the population to get vaccinated with these new mRNA vaccines, and then to push the “jab” into as many arms as possible. No other reason fits the evidence. It’s not about saving lives or public health. If it were, much different choices would have been made.

Back when I was on Facebook, in May of 2020, I made a post I shared widely. It said basically the same thing as the GBD which came out later: protect the vulnerable and let the younger people work. Let this thing burn itself out on people to whom it poses little to no danger. And get back to living our lives!
I got some mildly favorable reception from some friends, hostility from others, and attracted a few trolls. Fun shit. It sucks to be Cassandra, knowing what is coming, knowing how to prevent it, and knowing that nobody is going to listen to you.

People get what they get. At this point I’m just curious to see what will happen.
3   Patrick   2021 Jul 29, 12:51pm  

Al_Sharpton_for_President says
with over a thousand-fold difference between the young and the old


Nice summary right there.
4   Al_Sharpton_for_President   2021 Jul 29, 1:22pm  

Shaman says
From the beginning this has NOT been about public health.
A government backed takeover of your immune system? Making you dependent on each additional version of the jab, as you have inactivated your own natural defenses by redirecting your immune system towards the very defined wild-type mRNA protein fragment.
5   Patrick   2021 Jul 29, 1:32pm  

What a great business model!

A crime against humanity, but a great business model.
6   Al_Sharpton_for_President   2021 Jul 29, 2:45pm  

Patrick says
A crime against humanity, but a great business model.
A means of social control. You will be denied X, Y, Z, etc. And it won't be a simple binary choice as the current vaccinated are the unvaccinated for subsequent jabs. Too far fetched?
9   Patrick   2021 Sep 22, 5:29pm  

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/10000-unnecessary-cancer-deaths-linked-to-covid-19-pandemic-lockdown-in-uk-report_4011430.html?utm_source=patrick.net&utm_medium=patrick.net&utm_campaign=patrick.net

10,000 Unnecessary Cancer Deaths Linked to COVID-19 Pandemic, Lockdown in UK: Report
BY JACK PHILLIPS September 22, 2021

A lack of face-to-face doctor visits in the UK since the start of the CCP virus pandemic may result in 10,000 unnecessary deaths due to cancer, said a report from University College London published this week.
10   Rin   2021 Sep 22, 5:53pm  

While I appreciate someone from Harvard Med speaking up, in reality, even he's a bit short on the truth.

One man ... Rin, armed with only a BS in Applied Chemistry, solved the problem within a few weeks after the lockdown of 2020. I predicted the results of the following study (completed in Spring 2021), based upon simple research on PubMed, no MD nor MD/PhD was needed.

https://patrick.net/post/1340407/2021-08-01-i-guess-better-late-than-never-but-here


When co-morbidities are removed from the study ...



I don't know about you but the above looks rather promising, esp for most of the population.


And it's a vitamin/supplement, no Rx was required!
11   Patrick   2021 Sep 25, 3:10pm  

https://dossier.substack.com/p/freedom-prevails-covid-data-shows?token=patrick.net

If Sweden and Belarus were able to outperform other nations by simply doing nothing, what exactly have all of these “public health expert” interventions accomplished?

The “experts” told us that their approach would certainly result in human catastrophe, with bodies lining every city block. Yet the opposite is true. Life has moved on from COVID in these nations, where the illness is being treated comparable to seasonal influenza.

Moreover, there appears to be declining confidence that the latest promised “cure” to the disease (mRNA injections) are acting as a cure in any way, shape, or form.
12   Patrick   2021 Sep 30, 5:35am  

https://eugyppius.substack.com/p/no-lifting-lockdowns-isnt-hiding?token=patrick.net

No, lifting lockdowns isn't hiding the success of the vaccines.
Brief words on a stupid argument that just won't go away.


eugyppius
Sep 30

Every time you point out that post-vaccination Corona hospitalisations and deaths are the same or worse than pre-vaccination Corona hospitalisations and deaths, you hear the same thing: It’s because we raised the lockdowns. People are circulating a lot more now. Imagine how worse it would be without the vaccine.

This is so massively disingenuous, that anyone telling you this is either stupid or lying. In many cases, probably both.

Even at the twenty-week mark, the biggest studies (like this one from Public Health England) put efficacy against hospitalisation and death between 78% and 90%. And yet, right now, the UK is reporting 2 Corona deaths per million people every day. On this day last year, that number was about 0.6. Despite near universal vaccination in those cohorts most likely to die of Corona, deaths are up more than threefold.

Ending lockdowns cannot be the reason for this, for the simple reason that lockdowns never really had an obvious effect on mortality. You had to have highly subtle modelling studies to tease out all the invisible reasons why lockdowns were saving lives. More straightforward analyses found no effect. Just nothing. And this makes sense. Take any lockdown enthusiast, give him an unlabelled graph of the mortality curves, and ask him to determine, on the basis of these curves, which countries locked down and when. We all know he would fail. To that comes the natural experiments of Florida, which ended restrictions before anybody was vaccinated; and Texas, which ended them when hardly anybody was.

In summary: Lockdowns were basically worthless from the start, official statistics continue to claim massive victories for the vaccines, overall hospitalisations and deaths are the same or worse as before. This is what a mild Marek Effect looks like.


The Marek Effect is the danger to the unvaxxed from the vaxxed, who have become human virus bombs.

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