One of the world’s top scientists has branded lockdowns a “huge mistake” and called Australia a “standout loser” for “massively” damaging its economy and society without obtaining immunity to COVID-19. .....Professor of structural biology at Stanford University, he said “panic” stemming from “incorrect numbers” had prompted lockdowns whose damage “will exceed any saving of lives by a huge factor – there is no doubt in my mind”.
Professor Levitt said “excess deaths” in
Europe so far this year had been around 140,000, which was “actually not
that much” when seen in context of severe flu seasons. “In some of the
worst flu episodes we get to those kinds of numbers, sometimes a bit
more or sometimes a bit less,” he added.
“Flu
kills young people two or three times more than the coronavirus … if we
put those facts into the situation the burden of death from coronavirus
will in Europe be less than that of bad flu,” he explained.
Professor Levitt said “herd immunity” was
the “right policy”. Britain, with 441 death per million, “was on exactly
the right track before they were fed wrong numbers, and now have made
huge mistake,” he said, referring to modelling in March that said
500,000 people would die in Britain. “If
we were to do this again we would insist on face masks, hand sanitiser,
and some kind of payment that didn’t involve touching,” he added.
The
Stanford professor, who has been closely analysing the infection and
fatality numbers globally since January, said the growth in infections
was “never exponential” and tended to peter out after about four weeks
regardless of the severity of lockdowns.
No comments:
Post a Comment