Governor Steve Sisolak says “the science has changed” regarding Covid-19 and he can now lift mask, vaccination and other mandates. The fundamental problem with the policy response of Nevada, many states and our federal government, especially in regard to public health, is their failure to observe the first principle of public policy. Namely, decisions and actions should serve the broad public interest, balancing all relevant factors. They should not sub-optimize by considering issues from only one or a few perspectives and making choices on that basis.
Further, they should consider a full range of scientific and other relevant data and opinion and not be captive to a few individuals or ideological factions. Especially when those persons or factions may have vested or other special interests in the outcomes. Nevada, the federal government and many states made this mistake, too. We needn’t recite the back-and-forth choices, contradictions and other mistakes here.
Suffice it to note that federal policy was dictated mainly by two people: Dr. Anthony Fauci, an immunologist who directs the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (and says he is science); and Dr. Francis Collins, a geneticist who, until December 19, 2021, was director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
With combined budgets of $49-billion annually, they are by far the biggest funders of medical and infectious disease research worldwide. They channel research dollars to nearly every infectious disease epidemiologist, immunologist and virologist of note in America.
Policy in Nevada, and many other states, followed federal policy and pronouncements from Fauci and Collins. That policy consisted essentially of aggressive masking and lockdown mandates, accompanied by non-stop, inescapable propaganda. Added to that are nearly universal multiple injection requirements with experimental genetic vaccines. Vaccines we now know don’t work nearly as well as promised. (Germany prohibits even labeling these injections vaccines.) Finally, nearly uniform opposition to early treatments to be used upon diagnoses, some of which now show great promise.
On October 4, 2020, medical professors Jayanta Bhattacharya of Stanford, Sunetra Gupta of Oxford and Martin Kulldorff of Harvard wrote the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD). Their purpose was to express grave concerns over inadequate protection in this matter of vulnerable people and the devastating harms of lockdowns. There was and is no scientific consensus in favor of lockdowns.
They proposed a strategy of focused protection, based on a key scientific fact. Namely, there was more than a thousand-fold higher risk of death from Covid-19 for old people as compared to the young. Hence, better protection of the old would minimize the number of deaths. And opening schools and lifting blanket lockdowns would reduce collateral harm to everyone else.
In a recent article in the Independent Journal, they chronicled the detailed response to the GBD. It attracted signatures from more than 50,000 scientists and medical professionals and more than 800,000 members of the public.
They also sought to spur discussion among public-health scientists about how to better protect the vulnerable elderly. That goal found only limited success, due to Fauci and Collins.
In emails four days after publication of the GBD, Fauci and Collins authorized, “a quick and devastating published takedown,” of the professors’ proposals. They orchestrated, “an aggressive press campaign against those behind the [GBD] and others opposed to blanket COVID-19 restrictions.” They denigrated the authors as “three fringe epidemiologists” and blatantly mischaracterized focused protection as a “let-it-rip” herd immunization strategy – the opposite of what it is.
The professors state, “The fundamental goal of the GBD is to get through this terrible pandemic with the least harm to the public’s health. Health, of course, is broader than just COVID. Any reasonable evaluation of the lockdowns should consider their collateral damage to patients with cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and other infectious diseases, as well as mental health and much else.” The “much else” must reflect, for example, closed schools, folks out of work, the malnourished worldwide, plus all significant non-health impacts.
They conclude, “we should avoid having the same people in charge of public health policy and medical research funding.”
Ron Knecht is Senior Policy Fellow with Nevada Policy Research Institute.
