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This is a misrepresentation of ‘focused protection’ and Bhattacharya supported - and still supports - a vaccine strategy, which you insinuate he did not.

sudosysgen 3y ago
The comment you're replying to clearly specified this was a strategy that was advocated before vaccines were available. If you believe, as the signatories of the declaration did, that natural immunity to the virus is possible, then it's not a vaccine focused strategy, it's a strategy that's independent to any vaccine. It's not as if anyone thought that such a strategy wouldn't lead to the infection of essentially all of humanity, and it doesn't say anywhere in it that they expect there not to be durable natural immunity (in which case the policy is self-defeating and absurd), so while it's not an antivax proposal, it's clearly not vaccine focused. It's plainly true that "focused protection" is a euphemism for letting the virus tear through the vast, the vast majority of the population.
- orblivion 3y ago
  > the vast, the vast majority of the population The plan specifically is to (somehow) isolate vulnerable people and only "let er rip" for the rest of us. I'm skeptical on how this could have actually worked (or how well it actually did work in Florida), but that's the actual proposal.
  - DocSavage 3y ago
    There's the GBD proposal, and then there's the actual media tours by the GBD proponents, particularly on Fox, where COVID-19 was downplayed. Some of them famously wrote columns how there'd be maybe 10,000 fatalities and it was like the flu. Is it surprising that downplaying the virus also worked against spending huge amounts of money to protect the elderly? Like govt renting hotels to isolate elderly living with families? Or providing deliveries so they could stay at home?
    - orblivion 3y ago
      I think Dr. Jay B seemed reasonable and honest enough. For instance you can find him saying that he's not comfortable comparing it to the flu, since he suspects flu deaths may be greatly overcounted. He talks now (not sure about before) about deliveries and hotels as you say. Etc. But yes, the loudest dissenters seemed to be contrarians, rather than people with a specific plan. They take a big mash of GBD, "lol it's not that bad, not everybody's going to get it", "lol everybody's going to get it so there's nothing we can do anyway", "we're not obligated to look out for other people anyway", etc etc with all the inherent contradictions. Any signal that went against "THE COVID NARRATIVE" they signal boosted. Something like insecurity must have been driving this stuff. I think some of the counter-maintstream points were right, particularly about being sober about tradeoffs, but overall it was a total embarrassment. Granted the other side wasn't much better.
      - DocSavage 3y ago
        I think Jay B was better than most of the GBD supporters because he seemed to focus more on the targeted prevention. The problem was he didn't counter the downplaying of SARS-CoV-2 by people using his own seroprevalence paper (which had problems), or at least I never saw him push back on Atlas and others. So his criticism about public health issues is completely devoid of his own part in the story. They went heavy with part 1 (COVID isn't that bad for non-elderly) and were surprised that downplaying the impact didn't shift resources to the elderly. If people using his data were saying the overall IFR was like the flu, why should the govt go way into debt protecting the elderly?
  - spookthesunset 3y ago
    > I'm skeptical on how this could have actually worked (or how well it actually did work in Florida), but that's the actual proposal. I don't see piles of dead people in florida, do you? Guess what went down in florida worked just as well as the most hardcore lockdown regions around. Almost like masks and lockdowns didn't do a damn thing at all. Who would have guessed?
    - orblivion 3y ago
      Dr Jay B made it sound like it was supposed to work better than lockdowns at protecting the elderly. At best it seems about the same.
      - orblivion 3y ago
        I mean by your logic, focused protection didn't do a damn thing either.
        spookthesunset 3y ago
        Turns out you can’t control or contain a highly contagious respiratory virus. To think we could was peak human arrogance.
        DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
        Several countries were highly effective at controlling it, and had far lower death tolls as a consequence. These countries are very diverse in many respects, so one can't claim that they only succeeded due to some particular quirk they share in common: China, New Zealand, Australia, Vietnam, Taiwan, Singapore, and others.
        orblivion 3y ago
        FWIW I'll jump on the other side and note that most of these are island nations which makes it a lot easier.
  - sudosysgen 3y ago
    Isolation of vulnerable people is problematic because ~5% of the population was highly vulnerable, and actually isolating them would require extreme resources that we simply don't have. Rather, what was meant from the statements of signatories and drafters, was to let it rip for 99.5% of the population and offer less actual protection to the rest than we gave to the least protected in our scenario.
  - dent9876543 3y ago
    Great to be sceptical about it, because that’s how we end up with robust plans that stand a chance of actually working. But, for all the protesting about how GBD would have failed the old and vulnerable, it missed the point that we actually already did fail the old and vulnerable. It’s argued as if we succeeded. But for all our efforts, we failed those that really did need protection. They were stuck. (And some still are.) Community transmission rates were really high. And that matters when you’re in a vulnerable group, because anything >0 is basically “high”. All our efforts were general protection, which helped groups that didn’t really need help, but didn’t help the groups that really needed it.
- DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
  Indeed, the idea that "focused protection" could keep the elderly (and all the other at-risk people, who are nearly half of the US population) safe while the virus ripped through the rest of the population was absurd. Of course, we now know that herd immunity would never have been achieved, so the entire premise of the "focused protection" strategy was incorrect. Allowing virtually the entire population to become infected before the advent of vaccines would have been devastating. Things were bad enough as it was, with 1 million deaths in the US alone. At least most people in the US were vaccinated before their first infection - things would have been that much worse if the US had fully followed Bhattacharya's advice and actively sought herd immunity in mid-2020.

sudosysgen 3y ago

The comment you're replying to clearly specified this was a strategy that was advocated before vaccines were available. If you believe, as the signatories of the declaration did, that natural immunity to the virus is possible, then it's not a vaccine focused strategy, it's a strategy that's independent to any vaccine. It's not as if anyone thought that such a strategy wouldn't lead to the infection of essentially all of humanity, and it doesn't say anywhere in it that they expect there not to be durable natural immunity (in which case the policy is self-defeating and absurd), so while it's not an antivax proposal, it's clearly not vaccine focused. It's plainly true that "focused protection" is a euphemism for letting the virus tear through the vast, the vast majority of the population.

orblivion 3y ago
> the vast, the vast majority of the population The plan specifically is to (somehow) isolate vulnerable people and only "let er rip" for the rest of us. I'm skeptical on how this could have actually worked (or how well it actually did work in Florida), but that's the actual proposal.
- DocSavage 3y ago
  There's the GBD proposal, and then there's the actual media tours by the GBD proponents, particularly on Fox, where COVID-19 was downplayed. Some of them famously wrote columns how there'd be maybe 10,000 fatalities and it was like the flu. Is it surprising that downplaying the virus also worked against spending huge amounts of money to protect the elderly? Like govt renting hotels to isolate elderly living with families? Or providing deliveries so they could stay at home?
  - orblivion 3y ago
    I think Dr. Jay B seemed reasonable and honest enough. For instance you can find him saying that he's not comfortable comparing it to the flu, since he suspects flu deaths may be greatly overcounted. He talks now (not sure about before) about deliveries and hotels as you say. Etc. But yes, the loudest dissenters seemed to be contrarians, rather than people with a specific plan. They take a big mash of GBD, "lol it's not that bad, not everybody's going to get it", "lol everybody's going to get it so there's nothing we can do anyway", "we're not obligated to look out for other people anyway", etc etc with all the inherent contradictions. Any signal that went against "THE COVID NARRATIVE" they signal boosted. Something like insecurity must have been driving this stuff. I think some of the counter-maintstream points were right, particularly about being sober about tradeoffs, but overall it was a total embarrassment. Granted the other side wasn't much better.
    - DocSavage 3y ago
      I think Jay B was better than most of the GBD supporters because he seemed to focus more on the targeted prevention. The problem was he didn't counter the downplaying of SARS-CoV-2 by people using his own seroprevalence paper (which had problems), or at least I never saw him push back on Atlas and others. So his criticism about public health issues is completely devoid of his own part in the story. They went heavy with part 1 (COVID isn't that bad for non-elderly) and were surprised that downplaying the impact didn't shift resources to the elderly. If people using his data were saying the overall IFR was like the flu, why should the govt go way into debt protecting the elderly?
- spookthesunset 3y ago
  > I'm skeptical on how this could have actually worked (or how well it actually did work in Florida), but that's the actual proposal. I don't see piles of dead people in florida, do you? Guess what went down in florida worked just as well as the most hardcore lockdown regions around. Almost like masks and lockdowns didn't do a damn thing at all. Who would have guessed?
  - orblivion 3y ago
    Dr Jay B made it sound like it was supposed to work better than lockdowns at protecting the elderly. At best it seems about the same.
    - orblivion 3y ago
      I mean by your logic, focused protection didn't do a damn thing either.
      - spookthesunset 3y ago
        Turns out you can’t control or contain a highly contagious respiratory virus. To think we could was peak human arrogance.
        DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
        Several countries were highly effective at controlling it, and had far lower death tolls as a consequence. These countries are very diverse in many respects, so one can't claim that they only succeeded due to some particular quirk they share in common: China, New Zealand, Australia, Vietnam, Taiwan, Singapore, and others.
        orblivion 3y ago
        FWIW I'll jump on the other side and note that most of these are island nations which makes it a lot easier.
- sudosysgen 3y ago
  Isolation of vulnerable people is problematic because ~5% of the population was highly vulnerable, and actually isolating them would require extreme resources that we simply don't have. Rather, what was meant from the statements of signatories and drafters, was to let it rip for 99.5% of the population and offer less actual protection to the rest than we gave to the least protected in our scenario.
- dent9876543 3y ago
  Great to be sceptical about it, because that’s how we end up with robust plans that stand a chance of actually working. But, for all the protesting about how GBD would have failed the old and vulnerable, it missed the point that we actually already did fail the old and vulnerable. It’s argued as if we succeeded. But for all our efforts, we failed those that really did need protection. They were stuck. (And some still are.) Community transmission rates were really high. And that matters when you’re in a vulnerable group, because anything >0 is basically “high”. All our efforts were general protection, which helped groups that didn’t really need help, but didn’t help the groups that really needed it.
DiogenesKynikos 3y ago
Indeed, the idea that "focused protection" could keep the elderly (and all the other at-risk people, who are nearly half of the US population) safe while the virus ripped through the rest of the population was absurd. Of course, we now know that herd immunity would never have been achieved, so the entire premise of the "focused protection" strategy was incorrect. Allowing virtually the entire population to become infected before the advent of vaccines would have been devastating. Things were bad enough as it was, with 1 million deaths in the US alone. At least most people in the US were vaccinated before their first infection - things would have been that much worse if the US had fully followed Bhattacharya's advice and actively sought herd immunity in mid-2020.