Doctors and the American public denounce 'The Great Barrington Declaration,' a dangerous threat to public health and safety

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Doctors and the American public denounce 'The Great Barrington Declaration,' a dangerous threat to public health and safety

The American Public

One month out from a contentious election, those propagating 'The Great Barrington Declaration' are engaging in socially irresponsible and thinly veiled politics. This is NOT science. Those of us who have fought tirelessly since February to quickly and equitably implement comprehensive public health strategies to contain and mitigate COVID-19 are appalled.

Sincerely,

Dona Kim Murphey, MD PhD

Neurologist and Neuroscientist

COVID Long Hauler

Petition by

Dona Murphey

Pearland, Texas

To: The American Public
From: [Your Name]

As infectious disease specialists, epidemiologists, biologists, educators, and the public at large, we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call PRINCIPLED PUBLIC HEALTH PREVENTION.

The present policies are entirely insufficient and ignore that longstanding structural inequalities have produced the health disparities that contribute to the vast and disproportionate devastation of specific communities by COVID-19. Our well-meaning colleagues and those in the public who have signed onto the Great Barrington Declaration fail to acknowledge that the withdrawal of commitment to testing asymptomatic cases, the poverty of contact tracing, the excessive impact and lack of targeted efforts to protect communities of color, the disinformation from the highest levels of government, the reopening of bars, restaurants, clubs and permission to gather indoors in poorly ventilated spaces, and the continued refusal to model and implement universal masking have contributed directly to the extended need to isolate and all the morbidity that follows.

Like the virus itself, as the US presidential election approaches in the face of over 210,000 deaths from COVID in the United States and over 1M deaths worldwide, the dangerous reinvention of herd immunity as 'focused protection' and abandonment of critical preventive measures is spreading rapidly. Herd immunity is not a public health plan but the absence of one, a 'strategy' we are living already. And beyond the loss of life, who is considering the enormous cost in disability with an estimated hundreds of thousands in the United States alone living with long COVID?

We stand opposed to the Great Barrington Declaration and in favor of principled public health prevention to not only restore but improve health outcomes in the United States as quickly as possible.