So really, what was the Great Barrington Declaration?
At first it was portrayed as a serious policy document by health care experts challenging the response to COVID.
Trump's finger prints on it weren't obvious in the beginning.
But now, as the GBD has been the focus of conversation this week in a House Subcommittee, it is becoming clear what the GBD really is and where it came from. It is a clever piece of manipulation.
The essence of the GBD is this, instead of taking aggressive actions including “shutting down” the economy, we should just let her rip. Let the virus propagate uncontrolled through the young and healthy while focusing efforts on the elderly and vulnerable.
This way, we don't harm the economy and thus we re-elect DJT. Where was this bizarre idea concocted? It turns out it was in the White House with Trump advisor Dr. Atlas. Who is he? A radiologist from Stanford with no infectious disease training.
Who else? Dr. Jay Battacharya, another Stanford professor, an economist with an MD but no post graduate medical education whatsoever, no clinical experience or medical license.
Also involved were Peter Navarro and others lacking infectious disease training.
Trump didn't like what real infectious diseases doctors were recommending because it would slow the strong economy, Trump’s only real achievement, and hurt his re-election bid.
So DJTs team gathered these pseudo experts and crafted their recommendations into a lofty sounding document.
It's garbage.
Death and disability from COVID aren’t restricted to the elderly and chronically ill.
The logistics of directing intervention only to the elderly and chronically ill are problematic at best.
It was really all about Donald. His inflated sense of self importance and entitlement to the office of POTUS is what the GBD was really about. So GBD really doesn’t stand for Great Barrington Declaration. It means Greatly Benefitting Donald.