By Ben Kerrigan-
The world of scientists are clearly divided when it comes to lockdown policies, and many are making their voices heard through a global movement.
Thousands of scientists and health experts have joined a global movement warning of “grave concerns” about Covid-19 lockdown policies.
About 6,000 experts, including a sizeable number from the UK, say the approach is having a devastating impact on physical and mental health, as well as society. The group want protection to be focused on the vulnerable, allowing healthy people to get on with their lives.
The letter, named the Great Barrington Declaration after the town in Massachusetts where it was written, is a rallying cry for top experts and politicians to stop running from the coronavirus, and to learn to live with it.
Nearly 3,000 scientists have signed the petition, as well as almost 3,800 medical practitioners.’ The scientists are calling for those who are not vulnerable to immediately be allowed to resume life as normal,’ adding: ‘Keeping these [lockdown] measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.
Among the UK-based experts who have signed the petition are Dr Sunetra Gupta, an epidemiologist at Oxford University, Nottingham University self-harm expert Prof Ellen Townsend,(pictured) and Edinburgh University disease modeller Dr Paul McKeigue.
They say keeping the lockdown policies in place until a vaccine is available would cause “irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed”.
The group argue that as immunity builds in the population, the risk of infection to all – including the vulnerable – falls, and would be a much more “compassionate” approach.
The declaration recommends a number of measures to protect the vulnerable, including regular testing of care-home workers, with a move as far as possible towards using staff who have acquired immunity.
Sixty-six GPs, including TV doctors Dr Phil Hammond and Dr Rosemary Leonard and a number of medics who have held senior roles at the British Medical Association, have written to the health secretary, highlighting insufficient emphasis on “non-Covid harms” in the decision-making.