Football coach Bill Parcells famously said, “you are what your record says you are”. Though SBM readers know about it already, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya had a horrific record advising Gov. Ron DeSantis during Florida’s brutal Delta wave in the summer of 2021. Although he claimed the state had “protected the vulnerable,” here’s what he actually accomplished when he had the chance to put his ideas into practice:
- He failed to protect “vulnerable” people: “Florida Leads Nation in Number of COVID-19 Deaths of Nursing Home Residents and Staff,” August 2021.
- He failed to protect “not vulnerable” people: “Child Covid Deaths More Than Doubled in Florida as Kids Returned to the Classroom,” September 2021.
- He failed to keep schools open: “School Closures Reported In Five Florida Counties; Districts ‘Drowning’ In COVID,” August 2021.
- He failed to protect educators: “15 Miami-Dade Public School Staff Members Die of COVID In Just 10 Days,” September 2021.
- He failed to achieve herd immunity: “Florida’s COVID Deaths Reach Nearly 6,000 in 2024,” January 2025.
- He failed to protect education: “Florida Ranks Last In Reading, Warns Nationwide Education Report“, May 2026
Florida turned out to be a preview of coming attractions, and more people should have paid attention it at the time. Unfortunately, instead of caring about reality, many influential pundits ignored Florida’s warning and glorified Dr. Bhattacharya simply because he called for things. Members of sheltered Opinion Class felt this was a big deal.
Indeed, in August 2021, during the worst of it all in Florida, Dr. Bhattacharya wasn’t in the hospital to witness what his precious “natural immunity” was doing to citizens, both young and old. Rather, he was busy giving promoting both himself and “natural immunity” in the media.
He gave an interview to the misinformation publication Unherd that month, boasting of his 1-page online petition. The interview was titled Prof. Jay Bhattacharya: I stand by the Great Barrington Declaration, and it opened by saying:
Professor Jay Bhattacharya is one of the famous voices to have emerged out of the pandemic. A vocal critic of lockdowns, his name became synonymous with the controversial Great Barrington Declaration, which called for an “alternative approach to the pandemic” that would entail no lockdowns. Along with co-signatories Sunetra Gupta and Martin Kulldforff (who featured on UnHerd last year), the trio argued that public health strategies should instead centre on the ‘focused protection’ of at-risk groups while keeping society as open as possible so the healthy parts of the population could build herd immunity.
This was 100% true, and everyone should be in complete agreement about this.
Dr. Bhattacharya became a famous voice because he called for things and argued that other people should do them. Here’s a smattering things Dr. Bhattacharya called for on social media alone:
- Focused protection of vulnerable elderly and many policies
- We had twenty suggestions for how to accomplish focused protection in the gbd, and we called for public health to join in thinking creatively to think of more
- A study to get a better estimate so we could make better decisions
- Keeping schools open in Oct. 2020
We should also be clear that not only did Dr. Bhattacharya call for many things, this is all he did. He wasn’t in schools, hospitals, or nursing homes putting his plan into practice. As COVID raged, he was busy calling for things in podcasts, YouTube videos, editorials, and Tweets.
He further claimed that that he was were in charge, he would be able to do them. He would simply flip the “on” switch and everything would turn out just fine. How nice! Conversely, he blasted public health leaders for not doing all the things he called for. Why didn’t those fools just flip the “on” switch?
Fundamentally, Dr. Bhattacharya was a content creator who portrayed him as a pandemic superhero- COVID MAN, More Powerful Than a Deadly Virus. In the Fantasy of the Optional Pandemic, the virus was magically erased from the equation, and there was no difference between calling for something and actually doing it.
“Infant in Pennsylvania is one of the two measles deaths reported this week”
Things are very different today. Based on all the wonderful, amazing things he called for and would have done, Dr. Bhattacharya was elevated to a position of great authority and responsibility.
Dr. Bhattacharya’s days of calling for things are over. Now, it is our turn to call for things and to say we would do them. It’s his job to do everything we call for and to deliver concrete results. We have the right to excoriate him when he fails to do what we called for, just like he did with his predecessors.
Feel free to share in the comments what you would call for Dr. Bhattacharya to do. One of you may call for him to stop censoring scientists. That’s a good idea. Someone else might call for him to stop appointing unqualified people with dangerous beliefs to lead the NIH. That’s important too. Anyone can call for Dr. Bhattacharya to do whatever they want, and there’s no shortage of complaints regarding his dismal performance in office.
For my part, I am calling for Dr. Bhattacharya to control measles. Things are going very poorly right now. Measles seems to be everywhere. Children are suffering. A few of them have died, most recently an infant in Pennsylvania. Measles is straining local budgets and impacting education, as reported by the article A Study Shows Just How Much School Absences Soar in a Measles Outbreak.
It’s not the only virus spreading now. Though he previously claimed he would have perfectly contained COVID, today the headlines read CDC: COVID Infections Likely Rising in 50 States and South Texas School District Cancels Classes Amid COVID-19 Spread. It’s Florida’s Delta wave all over again, but now for the entire country and with multiple viruses, as well as bacteria and parasites.
Once again you are what your record says you are. Here’s Dr. Bhattacharya’s record.
“I’ve done my best.”
Dr. Bhattacharya was recently confronted his failure with measles by Margaret Brennan. In addition to blaming Biden, he boasted about a video he posted to X six months ago where he encouraged the MMR.
There is no reason to think this changed the mind of a single parent, however, Dr. Bhattacharya was proud of it. “I think I’ve done my best,” he said, and I believe him. He is not capable of doing better than this. Posting a single social media video is the best he can do to control dangerous viruses, and while he absolutely deserves a participation trophy for it, his “best” obviously isn’t good enough
Unfortunately, we are probably just getting started. Only the MMR can contain measles, and with anti-vaxx disinformation flying from the Oval Office, it’s no surprise that the headlines read Kindergarten Routine Vaccination Rates Continue to Decline.
So while Dr. Bhattacharya may be doing his best, he obviously needs a lot of him help. Since I am calling for him to contain measles, I will also tell him what I would do.
I would blanket the media with the facts. I would tell parents measles is dangerous while the MMR is safe and effective at every opportunity. This is exactly what Ms. Brennan suggested. She and I hit on the same idea, not because it is brilliant, but because it is obvious.
I would further travel and encourage vaccination during public meetings. I would send a diverse group of HHS employees to spread this message to different communities. I would call out anti-vaccine disinformation spread by Stephen Miller, Kennedy, and Trump, even this honesty cost me my job.I would not debase myself and the entire medical profession by nodding along as they lied about vaccines.
But that’s what Dr. Bhattacharya chose to do.
And until he gets measles under control, we should all point out his gross incompetence and call for him to get his act together in podcasts, YouTube videos, editorials, and Tweets. He’s the medical establishment now, and this is what he signed up for.