On today’s livestream we welcome a man who was one of the leading voices of reason in the pushback against the lockdowns and confused guidance that came from the public health authorities during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Dr Jay Bhattacharya is an esteemed physician, epidemiologist, health economist and public health policy expert. He is also a man of great wisdom, calm demeanour and rational thought.
As a Professor of Medicine at Stanford University, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research, and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, he has spent much of his career focusing on the economics of healthcare around the world, with a particular emphasis on the health and well-being of vulnerable populations.
He has published more than 100 papers in top peer-reviewed scientific journals on medicine, economics, health policy, epidemiology, statistics, law, and public health and his talent as a researcher and academic is marked by his interdisciplinary approach to complex public health issues.
As the world was turned upside down in the early months of 2020, and a global health crisis engulfed every nook and cranny of the planet, it was exactly people like Jay Bhattacharya who we would typically all turn to for answers and a robust policy response.
So why was it that for much of the intervening period since, Jay and a large number of his colleagues were defamed, censored, blacklisted and attacked by government officials, public health leaders and of course the mainstream media?
From the earliest days of the drama, Jay focused his attention on the basic epidemiological facts of the virus. The most important of which being the enormous age gradient in the risk of dying from Covid-19. 80% of the deaths were people aged over 65 and for the young there was a minuscule chance of serious illness.
As a result, Jay felt nationwide lockdowns would be hugely detrimental to society at large, in particular to young people and the poorest sections of society. Instead, Jay espoused the need for focused protection, concentrating on the elderly and vulnerable, while the rest of society could go about their lives.
Alongside Dr. Sunetra Gupta, Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology in the Department of Zoology at Oxford University and Dr. Martin Kulldorff, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Jay co-authored The Great Barrington Declaration.
The Declaration was a heavily debated and considered petition calling on those in the corridors of power to reformulate their response to the pandemic and put an end to the blanket lockdowns crippling the economy, destroying businesses and damaging the physical and mental well-being of citizens.
Tens of thousands of doctors, scientists and epidemiologists, including Nobel Prize winners, signed up. It naturally created a PR problem for Anthony Fauci and his team, and an all-out attack on those involved saw Jay and his closest colleagues face a backlash that in many ways continues to this day.
As Jay points out, it wasn’t even a left-field proposal, merely a recommended approach based on established logic and standard policy for how to manage respiratory virus pandemics that everyone had followed for a century.
“They faced a PR problem. They had to make us into fringe characters, fringe actors, destroy us, destroy our reputations, so they didn’t have to have that debate. They needed to create an illusion of scientific consensus that did not actually exist.”
When Elon Musk took over Twitter, he reached out to Jay and explained how he had been blacklisted and targeted in a censorship campaign that must, he believes, have come from the highest authorities in government.
Today, the data and statistics have shown Jay to be correct with his recommended approach. One look at the success of Sweden shows their all-cause excess deaths at a mere 3%, which pales in comparison with those on the strictest lockdown measures. Jay believes this should be our template for the next time we face such upheaval in our lives, but fears the worst from those at the helm.
Jay has established the Norfolk Group which aims to create a national commission to explore the official responses to Covid and itemise what went right and wrong in order to plan a better public-health response if and when another pandemic threatens.
“We’re gonna lock down again with the next pandemic, guaranteed. If the current configuration of power in public health and politics stands, we will respond by saying, ‘Look, the lockdown’s the only way’ and just as happened in 2020, it’ll be the laptop class that’ll benefit, and the poor and the vulnerable and children who will be harmed.”
Dr Jay Bhattacharya is an immensely experienced, knowledgeable and inspiring individual with a story that’s become all too familiar in recent times. I can’t wait to get the lowdown on the journey he’s been on and the extreme pressure he felt as he found himself on the receiving end of the censorship industrial complex.
Trailer
Watch the trailer for this exclusive video interview with Jay Bhattacharya:
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- Locking the world down in March 2020 was stupid
- Lockdowns sent millions of people into poverty
- Why the 2020 lockdown was immoral and unnecessary
- Why lockdowns did not work
- Why they did was a deep abuse of power
- This was Tony Fauci’s virus
- Tony Fauci supported the research that led to the creation of Covid
- I started getting death threats and hate mail
- The US government was behind big tech censorship
- The US government controls speech on social media
- The right to free expression is under attack
- Lockdown failed because of inequality
- Why we can’t trust the WHO
- FDA acted as sales people for Pfizer
- Covid is why trust in vaccines is at an all-time low
- Should 95% of people even have had the vaccine?
- Do you want to live in a biomedical security world?
