“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.”

This Declaration, authored and signed on 4 October 2020 in the small town of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, by Martin Kulldorff, Sunetra Gupta, and Jay Bhattacharya, offers a more compassionate, just and sustainable way of allowing societies to live with SARS-CoV-2 and the risks it presents us with. It does not think that a vaccine, or vaccines, will provide the silver bullet that will eliminate the risk. And even if it did, I believe it would deliver too late to prevent the enormous harms to society – including children, young adults and the socially disadvantaged – that the present UK Government policy is perpetuating. In contrast, ‘Focused Protection’ is an approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity; it allows 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.

This is why I have signed the Declaration.

Mike Hulme, 5 October 2020