Patria ratifies Great Barrington Declaration, calling for "Focused Protection"

Patria's Ministry of External Affairs has signed and the 51st Congress has ratified the Great Barrington Declaration. The Declaration, drafted in the Massachusetts town not far from the Kripalu Center, is a major statement of COVID-19 dissident voices by a number of leading physicians and epidemiologists at such nests of conspiracy theorists as Oxford, Harvard and Stanford, who have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies, and who recommend an approach they call Focused Protection.

The following is the text of the Declaration:

As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection. 

Coming from both the left and right, and around the world, we have devoted our careers to protecting people. Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. 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. 

Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.

Fortunately, our understanding of the virus is growing. We know that vulnerability to death from COVID-19 is more than a thousand-fold higher in the old and infirm than the young. Indeed, for children, COVID-19 is less dangerous than many other harms, including influenza. 

As immunity builds in the population, the risk of infection to all – including the vulnerable – falls. We know that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity – i.e.  the point at which the rate of new infections is stable – and that this can be assisted by (but is not dependent upon) a vaccine. Our goal should therefore be to minimize mortality and social harm until we reach herd immunity. 

The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. We call this Focused Protection. 

Adopting measures to protect the vulnerable should be the central aim of public health responses to COVID-19. By way of example, nursing homes should use staff with acquired immunity and perform frequent PCR testing of other staff and all visitors. Staff rotation should be minimized. Retired people living at home should have groceries and other essentials delivered to their home. When possible, they should meet family members outside rather than inside. A comprehensive and detailed list of measures, including approaches to multi-generational households, can be implemented, and is well within the scope and capability of public health professionals. 

Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal. Simple hygiene measures, such as hand washing and staying home when sick should be practiced by everyone to reduce the herd immunity threshold. Schools and universities should be open for in-person teaching. Extracurricular activities, such as sports, should be resumed. Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home. Restaurants and other businesses should open. Arts, music, sport and other cultural activities should resume. People who are more at risk may participate if they wish, while society as a whole enjoys the protection conferred upon the vulnerable by those who have built up herd immunity.

Focused Protection fits in well with Patria's approach to COVID-19. As you know (if you have been reading this blog), Patria is committed to herd immunity, keeping the economy - particularly local small businesses - open, opposing any attempt to impose lockdowns, and allowing life as we knew it in 2019 to continue as much as possible. Note that wearing masks in public places and indoor spaces is not mentioned at all in the Declaration. Citizens of Patria recognize the risks but choose a life with hugs, social gatherings, sports events, performing arts, in-person education, public prayers in temples, churches, synagogues and other houses of worship, and all forms of meaningful human contact. Navratri is only a few days away. Along with the usual prayers, chants and pujas to Durga, Lakshmi, Kali and Saraswati, temples throughout Patria will continue to offer pujas to Sheetala, (pictured at top of page) the Devi who cures all infectious diseases.

Sweden: “We’re going for herd immunity”. Patria: “Hold my beer” as Congress opens new session

 

Jai Sheetala Mata! Protecting Patria from COVID-19.

As the Fifty-First Congress returned from summer recess to open the Third Session (3·LI 2020-21) Patria is doubling down on its Covid-19 dissident voices. All across Patria, on radio and television spots, on billboards and handbills, and on the lips of almost every Patrienish citizen who is not buying the US-media-induced fear, the phrase “kevál estí grippí” – it’s only the flu – is resonating. At home altars and puja rooms, as well as at temples across Patria, the protection and blessings of Mother Sheetala are invoked.

 Near the top of the Third Session’s order paper is Patria’s commitment to herd immunity (not “herd mentality” as Donald Trump referenced it), particularly as students from KG to PhD begin the new academic year. As the Speaker of the House said today: “Patria’s healthy children, teenagers and young adults are on the front line of herd immunity. They are the vanguard shock troops who will build a line of defense in order to protect the elderly, those with compromised immune systems and those with underlying medical conditions against the actual threat of Covid-19, while themselves suffering no more than a mild flu or bad cold should they actually contract it”. Congress also re-affirmed that there will never be a Patria-wide lockdown, and any attempt to impose one on the precinct or local level will be actively resisted no matter how many positive tests or “cases” of Covid-19 (not hospital admissions or even “serious cases”) are discovered locally. The Social Democrats house leader added: “When Sweden says ‘we’re going for herd immunity and no lockdown’, Patria says ‘hold my beer’”.

 If you visit Patria, not only will you see virtually everything open for business as usual and virtually everyone freely associating (and hugging to boot), you will only rarely find anyone wearing a mask. Unless, as recommended by Patria’s Ministry of Dharma and Health, they are in self-quarantine, working in a health care facility, or are actually infected.

Rather than buying the fear-mongers and vaccine-pushers such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, Patria is heeding the advice of Prof. Udi Qimron, soon-to-be-head of the Department of Clinical Microbiology and Immunology at Tel Aviv University:

"The total number of coronavirus deaths does not exceed 0.1% of the total population in any country, and the death rate from coronavirus is less than 0.01% of the total world population, meaning that 99.99% of the world's population so far has survived the epidemic and the virus is negligibly lethal.

Smart behavior would be the opposite of what we do today. Populations not at risk should become infected and create chains of immunity, which will protect the sick and the elderly. We are currently working for sweeping social distancing, which prevents such differential immunity.

 There is a very great interest for anyone who has supported the draconian measures taken around the world to say that Sweden's policy has failed. Because if it succeeded, and trillions went down the drain for no reason, someone will have to answer for it.

That is why all over the world they prefer to claim that Sweden was wrong. But in the end, the truth came to the surface.

If we had not been told that there was an epidemic in the country, you would not have known there was such an epidemic and you would not have done anything about it. The fact that this issue runs all day in the media inflates it beyond its natural dimensions. If black death had raged here, as in the 14th century, you would not have had to follow the situation in the news, the bodies would have piled up in the streets. We were not and we are not in this situation today.

 In a world where decision makers, their advisers and the media were able to admit their mistake and the initial panic that gripped them, we would have long since returned to routine. The ongoing destruction due to the inability to admit this mistake, despite the epidemic’s small mortality numbers, is outrageous. History will judge the hysteria."

Indeed, history will judge the macro-world’s hysteria over what amounts to little more than another strain of the seasonal flu. History will judge the long-term damage (trillions of dollars, quadrillions of rupees) to the macro-world’s economy as well as to the mental and emotional health of those forced to wear masks for what could be a year or more, isolate from those who as recently as March 2020 used to bring them nurturing hugs, and for the sake of social distancing give up the human contact from religious services to sports events that used to provide sustenance and a meaningful quality of life. Patria will not follow the absurdities of much of the macro-world’s path of over-reaction and government over-reach. As Voltaire said, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities”.