On October 13 the White House
confirmed that it is embracing what the
Los Angeles Times editorial board
calls the “let people die” strategy in the face of the
COVID-19 pandemic. The strategy involves deliberately letting the novel coronavirus rip through the population while attempting to shield the most vulnerable, such as the elderly and those with pre-existing health conditions.
From a public health and ethical viewpoint, the fact that the Great Barrington Declaration is now the Trump administration’s official policy is deeply troubling. The declaration,
says Gregg Gonsalves, an epidemiologist at Yale University, has “shocked and dismayed the vast majority of people working in public health and clinical medicine.”
For a start, no pandemic has ever been controlled by deliberately letting the infection spread unchecked in the hope that people become immune.
Allowing millions more Americans to get COVID-19 would also be devastating for the U.S. economy. An economy cannot be healthy if its population is sick.
The White House Wants to Achieve Herd Immunity By Letting the Virus Rip. That is Dangerous and Inhumane.