Tag: Great Barrington Declaration
Science denial, overconfidence, and persuasion
The pandemic has brought scientists who have rejected science with respect to COVID-19 public health measures a disturbing level of influence. Recent research suggests reasons why and who among the public susceptible to such misinformation remains persuadable.
“New school” COVID-19 antivaxxers are becoming less and less distinguishable from “old school” antivaxxers
Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, a new generation of antivaxxers has arisen. Most view themselves as pro-vaccine, just not pro-COVID-19 vaccines. Recent developments, however, have demonstrated that "new school" antivaxxers are increasingly indistinguishable from "old school" antivaxxers and that this fusion is increasingly endangering all public health, not just COVID-19 public health interventions.
Is Anything About the Great Barrington Declaration Even Remotely Relevant?
The authors of the Great Barrington Declaration still claim that herd immunity is possible in 3-6 months.
Recycling old antivax tropes as “bioethics”-based arguments against COVID-19 vaccination for children
A recently published article in Bioethics makes ethical arguments against vaccinating children against COVID-19. If you change the word "COVID-19" to measles, chickenpox, or rotavirus (or others), this article could have been published on one of the higher-brow antivax websites in 2010. Antivax arguments never change; they're just continually recycled.
Old antivax tropes never die: “COVID theater,” “Urgency of Normal,” and the Great Barrington Declaration
Last week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis held a roundtable calling to "end COVID-19 theater" that brought together the Great Barrington Declaration and "Urgency of Normal," a movement to end mask mandates and other COVID-19 mitigations in schools. The arguments used long predate the pandemic and echo a dark side of the history of American medicine.
Which is best, vaccine-induced immunity, “natural immunity,” or “super immunity” to COVID-19?
Those opposed to public health interventions to slow the spread of COVID-19, including masks, "lockdowns," and vaccine mandates, are hyping "natural" immunity again as somehow "superior" to vaccine-acquired immunity. It's a deceptive simplification of a complex issue.
John Ioannidis uses the Kardashian Index to attack critics of the Great Barrington Declaration
This isn't a title that I ever thought I'd use or a post that I ever thought I'd write, but John Ioannidis has really done it. He's incompetently used the Kardashian index to attack John Snow Memorandum signatories and argue that the Great Barrington Declaration signatories, who argue for a "natural herd immunity" approach to the COVID-19 pandemic, are the underdogs who...
Jay Bhattacharya: “If It’s True That The Novel Coronavirus Would Kill Millions Without Shelter-In-Place Orders and Quarantines, Then the Extraordinary Measures Being Carried Out in Cities and States Around the Country Are Surely Justified”
Dr. Bhattacharya doesn't take the words of Dr. Bhattacharya seriously. So why should anybody else?
The “spiritual child of the Great Barrington Declaration” promotes antivaccine misinformation
The signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration and its "spiritual child" the Brownstone Institute, swear up and down that they are not anttivaccine. If that's so, why are Brownstone-affiliated academics spreading antivaccine misinformation in Uganda?
The tendentious libertarianism of the Great Barrington Declaration
Libertarian authors of the Great Barrington Declaration have branched out into criticisms of NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci. In keeping with their past activities, their criticisms are inaccurate and misleading.