Originally Posted by
dneal
Peter Robinson does politicize the conversation, but Dr. Bhattacharya avoids that generally and keeps to a context of public health policy. That's the "idea" in the piece. Not vaccines. He states he thinks vaccines are a good thing. He states that he was vaccinated (although he did contract COVID some months after that).
The interview begins with a review of his March 2020 WSJ article, advancing a hypothesis (based on his experience with H1N1) that the virus was much more prevalent than we suspected. His questions revolved around true mortality rate, and effectiveness of "lockdown" policies.
Peter introduces the criticism Dr. Bhattacharya, Harvard epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff and Oxford epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta received from the "Great Barrington Declaration", which simply advocated a more targeted response of protecting the more vulnerable. An example is multi-generational households where a younger member might have contracted COVID. Government paid hotel rooms should have been provided for the older (and more vulnerable) member(s) of the home. This is a lesson we probably should have learned from Italy. There is nothing new with the policy advocated, and it is the "standard" in dealing with these types of situations. It was mischaracterized, and he describes what "herd immunity" actually is.
If dealing with an outbreak that hasn't spread widely, quarantines and contact tracing are appropriate. But when the prevalence, or spread, is as wide as COVID had become once we detected it; "lockdowns" do not work. The genie is out of the bottle, so to speak. That is why you change your focus to the most vulnerable. Another key factor is that we know (and have for a long time) that risk increases exponentially with age. So where Fauci mischaracterized and mocked the approach with "you don't 'let it rip'...", the rebuttal is basically that the CDC and WHO "let it drip..."
Dr. Bhattacharya describes the impacts to multiple other populations. Children's education. People delaying (and dying from) an assortment of issues ranging from cancer to diabetes. Domestic abuse which declined strangely, but perhaps not so strangely when schools are one of the fundamental routes it is detected. He goes on, citing increased suicide rates and other problems with the "lockdown" approach.
That is really only for the developed world. The impact to the third world in particular, resulting from second and third order economic impacts; are horrifying. Even in first world countries, lockdown policies disproportionately impacted the poor. The affluent could withstand the lockdown, because they could telecommute or simply had enough money. The poor still went to their "essential" jobs stocking shelves, delivering packages (stuffed at Amazon warehouses), etc... They simply could not afford to stay home. Other poor in foodservice industries and other "non-essential" jobs were further impoverished.
Public health policy, he asserts, is political science. Politicians must weigh benefits and consequences within the totality of the circumstances, yet it was handed off to people who are paid to have a single focus. We should have a wider view in the future.
Lastly, they address how the choices undermined public trust and confidence. That's the problem with the CDC's changing mask guidance, for example. The flip-flopping alone is detrimental to confidence, but we now know the reason we were told not to wear them (before we were) was intentionally deceptive - no matter how noble the reason (mask availability). We still do not have real data on mask effectiveness, even though we've had a year and a half to examine it. That's a shame in and of itself, but Dr. Bhattacharya notes that it is precisely the lack of data that prompts divisiveness.
There is more, but you would have to watch or listen.
What Happened: Dr. Jay Bhattacharya on 19 Months of COVID
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