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
The Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) was published on October 4th, 2020. It was written under the watchful eye of a pro-tobacco, child-labor advocate, and it claimed we could rid ourselves of the virus by spreading the virus. The GBD claimed we could end the pandemic by April 2021 at the latest, but only if everyone worked in perfect unison. As they put it:
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. We call this Focused Protection.
In the GBD’s vision, the entire country would be informed of their Declaration, and after this, everyone would unite to abruptly and radically shift their entire approach to the pandemic. Citizens would voluntarily and appropriately sort themselves “vulnerable” or “not vulnerable” categories, and everyone would play their assigned role.
230 million or so unvaccinated, “not vulnerable” Americans, most of whom had been diligently trying to avoid the virus thus far, would instantly reverse course and embrace “natural infection”. That some of them would get really sick and die would not be a reason for anyone to abandon the project.
COVID’s risk to young people was widely-publicized since the start of the pandemic
In contrast, 100 million “vulnerable” people would be wrapped in a bubble and hermetically sealed from the outside world, where the virus would be raging. Meanwhile, politicians at every level would lift nearly all mitigation measures and instantly create programs to care for many millions of home bound “vulnerable” people. Since the authors of the GBD believed that one infection led to durable immunity, they claimed that once enough “not vulnerable” people contracted COVID, herd immunity would arrive and the pandemic would be over.
According to its authors, none of whom treated COVID patients, if everyone did what they were supposed to do, the GBD would have worked.
The GBD would have ended the pandemic
I wouldn’t do it, and I don’t think most people my age would.
Discussions about the GBD, from both its supporters and detractors, tend to take place in the conditional tense- what would, could, and might have happened. Many people have written about the innumerable things that would have gone wrong with the GBD. Dr. David Gorksi wrote an article titled The Great Barrington Declaration Never Would Have Worked and mathematician Kit Yates led a modeling study that:
Found critical flaws which meant shielding strategies, like the GBDs “focused protection”, would have failed in practice.
The author of a fascinating Twitter thread titled Taking the GBD Seriously “tried to crunch some numbers on what it would mean in practice.” He pondered “how many people would need to totally isolate as the virus accelerates… how many people would likely die?” Noah Louis-Ferdinand wrote a valuable series titled No, Focused Protection Wouldn’t Have Worked, where he speculated on what would have happened had millions of young people been willing to contract COVID in October 2020. He wrote:
They may change course as the virus spikes, hospitalizing 1-2 of their friends, classmates, or coworkers, and leaving others disabled potentially for months. Repeat waves which seriously hurt even a small minority of those we care about would be hard to just accept when the risk is modifiable. I wouldn’t do it, and I don’t think most people my age would.
However, we don’t have to speak about the GBD this way. The GBD actually existed, and we can discuss what actually happened. While many things could have gone wrong with the GBD, it turns out something did go horribly wrong with it- most people never heard of it and those who did refused to play their assigned role.
Though Mr. Louis-Ferdinand wrote “I wouldn’t do it, and I don’t think most people my age would“, he should have written “I didn’t do it, and I don’t think most people my age did.” Indeed, most “not vulnerable” people rightly sensed their infections would invariably spill over to “vulnerable” people. They also knew the virus posed some real risk to them and that vaccines were potentially just around the corner. For these reasons, they refused to contract COVID en masse in October 2020. I didn’t rush out to get COVID when the GBD was published. I don’t know anyone who did, and I doubt you do either. There were social media posts in October 2020 of people boasting they signed the GBD, but none of them posted pictures of themselves in a crowded bar with the caption:
I read the GBD and now realize it is my obligation to protect the vulnerable by getting natural immunity.
In fact, one the authors of the GBD wisely avoided the virus until August 2021, after he had been safely vaccinated. Countless millions of Americans made the same choice, including many people who now claim the GBD would have worked. These people did not want to be part of the herd. They wanted the herd to be there for them.
As I previously discussed, the GBD was not anti-lockdown for “vulnerable” people, and many of them also rejected role the GBD assigned to them. Some “vulnerable” people were terrified by the GBD’s plans to let the virus run rampant in their community. Going shopping or traveling to the doctor’s office would have become much more dangerous in the GBD’s vision. Other “vulnerable” people refused to stay locked down. Some even attended COVID protests. The authors of the GBD never did any polling of “vulnerable” people to see if they were on board with their plans to turn them into shut-ins or move them out of their homes. They just wanted to impose their will on them.
Lastly, government officials knew they couldn’t instantly conjure the resources to care for tens of millions of home bound “vulnerable” people as the GBD demanded, and so most of them refused to lift all mitigations measures in October 2020.
Even if the GBD had been right about the durability of viral-induced immunity and children not spreading the virus (discussed here by Dr. Gorski and to be discussed in part 2 of this series), the question of whether the GBD could have worked presupposes an absurd Fantasyland where 330 millions Americans first learned of the GBD and then marched like ants in lockstep with its demands. When the authors of the GBD bemoan that “we never really tried focused protection“, their real complaint is that the entire country didn’t suddenly obey their every command in October 2020. “If only everyone had done everything we asked, things would have been just fine,” they say in essence.
For the GBD to usher in herd immunity in 3-6 months, essentially everyone had to play their assigned role. In the real world, that didn’t happen.
The declaration was signed and released and many scientists responded, mostly to argue that it was based on false premises and was not a workable solution.
Of course, anyone could devise a “plan” to solve almost any societal ill if they assumed the entire populace did everything they wanted. However, when their “plan” inevitably failed, most people would realize their “plan” wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
In contrast, the authors of the GBD never questioned their Declaration or their powers of persuasion. Instead, they blamed others for not getting 330 million Americans on board with their Declaration. They are livid that other people did not disseminate their Declaration to the entire country, and they can’t fathom that most people who read it found it totally unconvincing. They can only claim to have been suppressed- if only YouTube hadn’t removed that video in 2021, 230 million people would have been willing to get COVID in October 2020. The authors of the GBD feel they are victims because they didn’t get as much attention as they feel they deserved. They felt their Declaration entitled them to influence COVID policy at a national level.
In reality, the authors of the GBD are to blame for its failure. They were 3 highly-credentialed, but essentially random scientists who hammered out a one-page Declaration under the sponsorship of a right-wing think tank. There was a camera crew and journalists at the signing of the GBD. They toasted champagne and bells rang. It was a campy theatrical production. The authors of the GBD had already met with President Trump who echoed their talking points. They had many powerful supporters, and they were granted an audience with Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar the next day. They authors of the GBD used their single page to become pandemic celebrities. They were omnipresent in the media, and they had direct access to powerful politicians. They had an unparalleled opportunity to convince scientists and the general public to adopt their “plan”. Even with this massive megaphone, they failed.
Their “plan” was absurd and impossible, and most people who read it figured this our right away. As one social media commentator rightly put it:
Seems to me that debate about the Barrington Declaration wasn’t quashed at all. The declaration was signed and released and many scientists responded, mostly to argue that it was based on false premises and was not a workable solution. That’s not censorship any more than subjecting journal articles to peer review is censorship. Just because your argument doesn’t hold up well under scrutiny, you don’t get to cry “censorship”. Come up with a better argument.
Indeed.
Faucism and Fascism are not the same, but there are some similarities
However, instead of quietly trying to persuade the relevant decision makers and stakeholders, the GBD’s authors took to the airwaves to launch a non-stop deluge of juvenile, bad faith attacks against anyone who opposed their planned mass infection, including trusted scientists who could have promoted and enacted their “plan” had they been convinced by it- “Dr. Fauci is probably the number one anti-vaxxer in the country“, “Faucism and Fascism are not the same, but there are some similarities“. Even though their “plan” to achieve herd immunity in 3-6 months required the whole country to come together as a synchronized team, the authors of the GBD were pugnacious brawlers and purposefully polarizing figures, alienating the people they needed to convince.
Notably, while they regularly castigated politicians for failing to lift mitigation measures, they held their fire when politicians for failed to deliver groceries to home bound seniors or prevent COVID outbreaks at nursing homes– which are still happening. That part of “focused protection”, which in theory was the core of the GBD, was mere window dressing for the GBD’s only goals- removing mitigation measures and infecting countless millions of unvaccinated Americans.
Of course, the authors of the GBD are well aware their plan was failed. Amazingly, one its authors posted a fake “review” of my book, which he did not read, imagining that he was refuting it. Had he read it, he would have known that we totally agree- in the real world, his people rejected his plan.
Misinformation Alert: The GBD’s philosophy was embraced by key members of Trump administration
Imagine… We would have won the policy argument. Schools would have opened. We would have prioritized protection of the vulnerable.
However, the real world failure of the GBD wasn’t a problem for its authors. Quite the opposite actually. It allowed them to speak about the GBD entirely in the conditional tense, as if it never really existed at all. They claim that if everyone had learned about the GBD, they would have been convinced by it, and they would have played their assigned roles. Schools would have opened, and the vulnerable would have been protected. Herd immunity would have arrived, and the pandemic would have ended. Though what the authors of the GBD actually did was make a lot of YouTube videos, they want you to enter Fantasyland to imagine all the amazing, incredible, astonishing things they would have done, if only the all-powerful combination of the Francis Collins and YouTube hadn’t stood in their way. (I previously satirized this attitude in my article What I Would Have Done).
Misinformation Alert: The director of the NIH, not inappropriately, considered writing a “devastating takedown” of the “premises” of the GBD in an email, but never did so. Many others did, however.
Florida Leads Nation in Number of COVID-19 Deaths of Nursing Home Residents and Staff.
This is not to say the pro-infection philosophy of the GBD was harmless. Its authors did a great deal of damage in those “notable exceptions” where they had influence. For these areas, we don’t have to ask what would have happened. We can examine what actually happened.
They failed to protect “vulnerable” people- Florida Leads Nation in Number of COVID-19 Deaths of Nursing Home Residents and Staff.
They failed to protect “not vulnerable” people- Child Covid Deaths More Than Doubled in Florida as Kids Returned to the Classroom.
They failed to keep schools open- School Closures Reported In Five Florida Counties; Districts ‘Drowning’ In COVID.
They failed to end the pandemic- the article Florida Sees COVID-19 Surge in Emergency Rooms, Near Last Winter’s Peaks was written just last week.
They failed to do a single thing they would have done.
Despite claims to the contrary, the GBD’s philosophy was embraced by key members of Trump administration, and though it took awhile, its sphere of influence has grown greatly since then. The GBD’s anti-vaccine rhetoric is now tolerated at top medical schools and in the mainstream media. Thanks to their misinformation, we are likely less prepared to handle a pandemic than we were in 2019. It’s been years since we tried to control the virus, and as a result, and nearly everyone has been infected, many of us many times. This was the GBD’s sole “success.”
The many real world failures of the GBD
That’s what actually happened, and as those who actually read it know, my book is about what actually happened and what I actually did caring for COVID patients, not self-glorifying, grandiose fantasies about what I would have done. However, I also venture into the conditional tense at times. COVID would have been horrible no matter what, but might some people still be alive had influential doctors tried to vaccinate them against a dangerous virus instead of purposefully expose them to it?
Yet, despite this mass infection, the authors of the GBD can’t point to anywhere on earth where focused protection was used to “protect the vulnerable” and achieve herd immunity in 3-6 months. As such, we don’t have to ask if the GBD could have worked.
In the real world, it failed.
Author note: I discussed this essay on my podcast this week.