The Trump Administration adaptation of the fringe theory of “herd immunity” as its official–if unacknowledged–strategy to address the coronavirus pandemic is being derided by virologists and public health experts as a reckless surrender that will cost millions of American lives.
As the Washington Post reports, the White House is seeking people to reinforce its policy. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist with no public health experience who has become a chief advisor to President Trump on the coronavirus met with a number of fringe doctors advocating the strategy.
“We heard strong reinforcement of the Trump Administration’s strategy of aggressively protecting the vulnerable while opening schools and the workplace,” Azar tweeted after the meeting.
Three scientists, all Fox “News” regulars like Atlas was, have come forward as the advocates the White House refers to: Martin Kulldorff is an epidemiologist at Harvard University. Sunetra Gupta is an epidemiologist at the University of Oxford. Jay Bhattacharya is a physician and health economist at Stanford Medical School.
They published a paper calling for “focused protection” for the vulnerable, including the immunocompromised and the elderly. Let everyone else get the coronavirus, they advocate, but they’ll protect the endangered. The losses, they say, will be acceptable.
Those losses, however, could be as high as 6 million dead and innumerable people suffering the long term consequences.
Even members of Trump own staff are doubtful of the adoption of the theory–but only in name.
“We’re not endorsing a plan. The plan is endorsing what the president’s policy has been for months. The president’s policy — protect the vulnerable, prevent hospital overcrowding, and open schools and businesses — and he’s been very clear on that,” the official said.
Scientists who understand herd immunity say the only way to effectively achieve it is through vaccinations, not infections. With the coronavirus, immunity is not a proven aftereffect of infection; there are documented cases of people being infected multiple times.