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Close Main Content There is no ‘scientific divide’ over herd immunity There’s a lot of talk of scientists divided over Covid-19, but when you look at the evidence any so-called divide starts to evaporate By 07 Oct 2020 By Wednesday 7 October 2020 Marco Bottigelli via Getty Images / WIRED On October 4, in a wood-panelled room at an event hosted by a libertarian think tank, three scientists signed a document that they say offers an alternative way of responding to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The signing of this so-called “Great Barrington Declaration” was greeted with clinking champagne glasses before the signatories jetted off to Washington DC on the invite of White House coronavirus advisor Scott Atlas.
Advertisement While the science isn’t particularly convincing, the Great Barrington Declaration has been successful in one respect.
It suggests that scientists fall into two camps: those who are pro-lockdown and those who think we should avoid lockdowns and allow people to become infected, hopefully building up enough herd immunity along the way.
The media has picked up on this narrative of a supposed rift among scientists and has run with it, while simultaneously declaring that no one is talking about it.
So what do the Great Barrington Declaration authors suggest we should be doing?
“Simple hygiene measures, such as hand washing and staying home when sick should be practiced by everyone to reduce the herd immunity threshold.
Schools and universities should be open for in-person teaching.
An AI could write a better book By Amit Katwala This is where things start to feel really wobbly.
For a start, we don’t know enough about Covid-19 immunity to say that having the disease does offer long-term protection.
But even more crucially it’s not clear who exactly the authors mean by “vulnerable”.