So-called “experts” have been advertising disastrous COVID plans, from herd immunity to herbal medicines. None of these plantexts have worked — in fact, most do more harm than good. These “experts” have yet to pay a professional price.
In July of 2020, Paul Alexander, an epidemiologist who worked in the HHS Department during Trump’s presidency, offered a solution to the COVID-19 pandemic: herd immunity. The basic idea behind the theory was that if a huge amount of people became infected with the virus, eventually so many would become immune to the virus that it would stop spreading.
“Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk,” Alexander explained to Health and Human Services officials. “So we use them to develop herd … we want them infected.”
Other government officials supported this theory as well. Scott Atlas, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, was one of these people, claiming that lockdowns “incited irrational fear” and caused an estimated 10,000 deaths. He soon became a top supporter of the herd immunity theory, and with it, a top advisor to Trump.
Jonathan Howard, a neurologist at New York University, documented Alexander’s idea. He’s a debunker of conspiracy theories that act as obstacles in the way of successfully defeating the pandemic.
“In 2019,” Howard said, “you would have been considered a quack if you suggested that the best way to get rid of a virus is to spread the virus. But that became mainstream and influenced politicians at the highest level.”
Howard highlighted several problems with herd immunity. For example, immunity from a COVID-19 infection isn’t permanent. Rather, it declines over time. Infection with one variant also does not equal immunity from other variants. There have been a number of unnecessary deaths due to an untrustworthy “theory”. Although the people in question may be marked as “zero to little risk” that doesn’t mean that COVID can’t be deadly.
The U.S. still hasn’t achieved Alexander’s goal of “herd immunity”. The path of the disease has been catastrophic: the U.S. death rate is the highest in the world, standing at 3,478 per one million people. 1.13 million people have died from the virus so far, and it’s estimated that 245,000 children have lost one or both parents to COVID-19.
Let Howard’s book serve as a warning of the threats that conspiracy theories pose.
In July of 2020, Paul Alexander, an epidemiologist who worked in the HHS Department during Trump’s presidency, offered a solution to the COVID-19 pandemic: herd immunity. The basic idea behind the theory was that if a huge amount of people became infected with the virus, eventually so many would become immune to the virus that it would stop spreading.
“Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk,” Alexander explained to Health and Human Services officials. “So we use them to develop herd … we want them infected.”
Other government officials supported this theory as well. Scott Atlas, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, was one of these people, claiming that lockdowns “incited irrational fear” and caused an estimated 10,000 deaths. He soon became a top supporter of the herd immunity theory, and with it, a top advisor to Trump.
Jonathan Howard, a neurologist at New York University, documented Alexander’s idea. He’s a debunker of conspiracy theories that act as obstacles in the way of successfully defeating the pandemic.
“In 2019,” Howard said, “you would have been considered a quack if you suggested that the best way to get rid of a virus is to spread the virus. But that became mainstream and influenced politicians at the highest level.”
Howard highlighted several problems with herd immunity. For example, immunity from a COVID-19 infection isn’t permanent. Rather, it declines over time. Infection with one variant also does not equal immunity from other variants. There have been a number of unnecessary deaths due to an untrustworthy “theory”. Although the people in question may be marked as “zero to little risk” that doesn’t mean that COVID can’t be deadly.
The U.S. still hasn’t achieved Alexander’s goal of “herd immunity”. The path of the disease has been catastrophic: the U.S. death rate is the highest in the world, standing at 3,478 per one million people. 1.13 million people have died from the virus so far, and it’s estimated that 245,000 children have lost one or both parents to COVID-19.
Let Howard’s book serve as a warning of the threats that conspiracy theories pose.
