It’s baseless to assume that the benefit of lockdowns outweighs their harm.
It’s baseless to assume that the benefit of lockdowns outweighs their harm.
O n October 4, Harvard’s Martin Kulldorff, Oxford’s Sunetra Gupta, and Stanford’s Jay Bhattacharya gathered at Great Barrington, Mass., to pen a declaration that, in just five days, has gained some 15,000 signatures from doctors and health scientists. The declaration calls for a smart alternative to the lockdowns and social-distancing rules that Joe Biden insists are based on “the science.”
Other experts have been quick to offer criticisms, of course. But that’s how science works. It rarely speaks with one voice. And this is why the declaration matters: It snatches the science card from Biden and everyone else who claims the science should dissuade us from returning to normal life.
Trump now has the chance to take the science card himself — legitimately. He doesn’t need to pretend all scientists agree, or appeal to his own impressive recovery from COVID-19. Instead, he should remind everyone of the true cost of shutting down schools and businesses and churches.
Barrington reminds us that the burden of proof was always on those who called for Draconian lockdowns. That’s because of the severe costs of these measures. As their declaration notes, the “current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health.” These include cancers that go undetected because of reduced screening, worse outcomes from cardiovascular disease, deteriorating mental health, and increased harm to at-risk children. All of these risks are especially acute for the young and the less affluent.
And what proof did lockdown partisans possess? Not much. The case for the lockdowns was based on three speculative ideas, all of which scientific experts dispute.
First was the belief that the coronavirus was so deadly that it called for an unprecedented and untested response. With the data now in, we know this was wrong. By far the most severe viral outbreak in U.S. history was the Spanish flu of 1918. It killed about 0.7 percent of the population, hitting healthy young adults particularly hard. COVID-19 has claimed 0.06 percent of the population, with deaths concentrated among the elderly with preexisting health problems. As the declaration puts it: “We know that vulnerability to death from COVID-19 is more than a thousand-fold higher in the old and infirm than the young.”
Second, in view of this fact, it’s misleading to claim that all SARS-CoV-2 deaths among people who have tested positive for were caused by the virus. The life expectancy in the U.S. is nearly the same as the average age of those with COVID-associated deaths. That suggests the virus is contributing to deaths that would soon have occurred in any case. This is not the Spanish flu.
Third, it’s baseless to assume that the benefit of lockdowns outweighs their harm. The benefit — thousands of saved lives — was always hypothetical: Models that claimed to show how many would have died without the massive shutdowns proved to be as trusty as crystal balls. Add to this the lack of any clear correlation between lockdown policy and viral outcome, either among the states or countries, and we have ample reason to call that bluff.
What should President Trump do with this?
First, he should continue to reassure the public and push back against the press’s panic porn. The scientific facts are squarely on his side.
Second, he should stop overselling the importance of a vaccine. No one knows if, or when, one will become available. And the promise of a vaccine gives lockdown partisans an excuse to keep pressing their case. The endpoint is herd immunity, which, as the declaration states, can happen safely with or without a vaccine.
Third, he shouldn’t imply that the virus hits everyone equally. Some in his age bracket won’t fare as well as he has, and he needs to promote the protection of the vulnerable.
Finally, while granting a diversity of views among experts, he needs to seize the opportunity to show that Biden’s claim to hold the science card is baseless. Trump can win this argument but only if he marshals the scientific evidence to convince Americans we can safely reopen. To do that, he should make a prepared speech drawing on the many prominent scientists who took real risks in signing the Barrington Declaration.
Douglas Axe, William Briggs, and Jay W. Richards are the authors of The Price of Panic: How the Tyranny of Experts Turned a Pandemic into a Catastrophe.