Barrington document is nonsense

Dear Mr. Wibby, what in the name of humanity are you thinking? Why do you repeatedly submit commentary that sows misinformation and confusion regarding America’s battle against the COVID-19 pandemic?

I can only conclude that you, like our president, do not care how many people die as long as the stock market continues its artificially stimulated race to a meltdown. Or perhaps you buy into the argument that COVID-19 only kills old people and, well, they are really just a drain on society anyway, so what the heck?

The Great Barrington Declaration is a piece of quackery suggesting we let the virus infect and kill enough of the population until herd immunity is achieved. The old and vulnerable are to hide and isolate and hope that the virus running rampant among the “healthy” population does not find them.

I don’t even know where to start to argue against such absurdity. I do know that the “prominent experts” who wrote the piece are not such great experts.

Martin Kulldorff is not an MD and his background is in data mining for cancer epidemiology, not viral infections. Jay Bhattacharya was a research fellow at the far-right Hoover Institution. That alone is grounds for disqualification. Oh, and less than 20,000 chiropractors, naturopaths and other “medical practitioners” have signed the declaration. Not very compelling support.

Please stop denying the guidelines provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the worldwide authority on combating infectious disease. Yes, the economic impact of lockdowns is severe and mask wearing is inconvenient.

Unfortunately, our White House leadership failed to act decisively to prevent the virus from becoming endemic in our population and now we have the unfortunate choice of balancing how many more hundreds of thousands of Americans will die against stock market losses for the wealthy.

JAMES O’NEILL Lafayette