In a segment of The Hill’s “Rising,” Kim Iversen discussed the controversial Great Barrington Declaration, suggesting the authors were correct about the effects of harsh pandemic lockdown policies.
“Back in October 2020, three well-respected epidemiologists and public health scientists — Sunetra Gupta of Oxford, Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford and Martin Kulldoroff of Harvard — wrote a memo detailing what they believed would be a better approach to handling the pandemic,” said Iversen.
Iversen said:
“During that time everyone was still all about the lockdowns. The common wisdom of the day was stay home, save lives and wait for a vaccine. Schools closed, businesses were shuttered and people were scrambling to figure out how they were going to make ends meet.”
Iversen noted how those who came out against lockdown policies “were labeled selfish grandma killers, or were told they were in the pockets of Wall Street, only caring about profits.”
But the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration said the consequences of these lockdowns “are going to be disastrous,” she said.
Iversen read a part of the declaration where the authors hypothesized the probable blowback from lockdown policies:
“The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health — leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden. Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice.”
“So let’s fast forward because it’s now been a year,” said Iversen. “Were they wrong? Did lockdowns save lives without devastating consequences? Or were these three authors unfortunately right?”
Iversen said the declaration’s authors predicted children will not have access to the regular childhood vaccination schedule, “so let’s start there.”
Iversen referenced documents from a recent Maryland State Board of Education meeting showing in the state of Maryland alone, 23,000 children in public schools did not get their regularly scheduled vaccines this year, compared to only 62 children the year before.
Iversen said the Great Barrington Declaration also warned a post-lockdown world would see worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health.”
She continued, “So let’s look at this NPR article published on Tuesday that explains how ERs are now swamped with seriously ill patients, but many don’t even have COVID.”
The NPR article reads:
“Even in parts of the country where COVID-19 isn’t overwhelming the health system, patients are showing up to the ER sicker than they were before the pandemic, their diseases more advanced and in need of more complicated care … Months of treatment delays have exacerbated chronic conditions and worsened symptoms. Doctors and nurses say the severity of illness ranges widely and includes abdominal pain, respiratory problems, blood clots, heart conditions and suicide attempts, among others.”
The declaration’s prediction of a post-lockdown world with deteriorating mental health was especially right, Iversen argued.
Pointing to a recent piece in The Hill, Iversen reported pediatric groups are now urging lawmakers to treat the current childhood mental health crisis as an emergency, citing “alarming statistics,” such as mental health ER visits for children ages 5-11 rising by 24% and 31% for children ages 12-17.
“There’s also been more than a 50% increase in ER visits for suspected suicide attempts among girls ages 12-17,” Iversen said.
“So it turns out a year later, after these three prestigious and well-respected public health scientists have been villainized, they were right … The lockdowns proved to be a disaster with devastating consequences for younger people who often are at little to no risk of severe COVID,” she explained.
“And for the people who say that the lockdowns slowed the spread and stopped hospitals from becoming overwhelmed, a paper by Simon Fraser University examining 80 studies on lockdowns from around the world concluded that only 20 of the 80 studies showed a positive benefit in slowing the spread, and even then it was minor,” Iversen said.
Author of that paper, economics professor Douglas Allen, concluded that lockdown policies were possibly “one of the greatest peacetime policy failures.”
Watch the segment here:
© 2021 Children’s Health Defense, Inc. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of Children’s Health Defense, Inc. Want to learn more from Children’s Health Defense? Sign up for free news and updates from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. Your donation will help to support us in our efforts.
One Sick Day Proves We Need More Voices in Truthful Media
On October 19, I was sick. It crossed my mind that I had finally gotten the ‘rona, but my wife’s cream of chicken soup and a few extra hours of sleep into mid-afternoon had be back up and running after a sleepless night before.
When I finally stumbled over to my computer in the evening, I was met with a deluge of concern from readers. They asked what had happened as only one article had been posted that day. Generally, we post between 10-20 daily between all of the sites, not included curated and aggregated content. Seeing that we’d only posted my super-early morning article before taking the rest of the day off had readers assuming the worst.
We have a wonderful and talented group of writers who volunteer their time for the sites and their readers. Sharing their amazing perspectives has always been a blessing to us because we cannot afford to hire anyone at this time. But having great writers is meaningless if we don’t have great editors, or at least one additional. My wife helps me read and edit stories from time to time, but I’m a one-man show when it comes to getting the stories posted.
Whenever I highlight our desperate need for donations, I note that we do not receive money from Google ads even though most in conservative media are beholden. I often ambiguously note that the money donated will help us grow. Today, I’m highlighting a specific need. We must get an editor to help take some of the load and to expand on our mission of spreading the truth to the world. One sick day proved that.
The great news is that there is no shortage of people who CAN help. I am emailed variations of resumes every week by people who are much smarter than I am. As much as I’d love to hire some of them, we simply cannot. That takes money and as blessed as we’ve been to receive donations and collect ad money (though not from Google or Facebook), we have still fallen short.
Those who have the means, PLEASE consider donating. We have the standard Giving Fuel option and people can donate through PayPal. We are also diving into what we believe is extremely disruptive technology at LetsGo.finance, the world’s first major donation portal for crypto. I’ll be talking a lot more about them in the near future. Those who prefer Bitcoin can send to my address here: 3A1ELVhGgrwrypwTJhPwnaTVGmuqyQrMB8
We can get the voices out there and we’re willing to shine a spotlight on new talent. We just need the resources to make it happen. If you can help, we would be extremely grateful.
Thank you and God bless!
JD Rucker
All ORIGINAL content on this site is © 2021 NOQ Report. All REPUBLISHED content has received direct or implied permission for reproduction.
With that said, our content may be reproduced and distributed as long as it has a link to the original source and the author is credited prominently. We don’t mind you using our content as long as you help out by giving us credit with a prominent link. If you feel like giving us a tip for the content, we will not object!
JD Rucker – EIC
@jdrucker
