Polsky Hosts Webinar on ‘Herd Immunity vs. Lockdown’ Debate

A recent Johns Hopkins webinar, organized by the Hopkins Business of Health Initiative, addressed whether the response to the COVID-19 pandemic should be a further lockdown of society or a wider opening of public institutions to promote herd immunity.

The October 30 event was hosted by Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Health Policy and Economics Daniel Polsky of the Carey Business School.

The participants also included three epidemiologists from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health – Colleen Hanrahan, David Dowdy, and Stefan Baral – as well as Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Hanrahan served as moderator, posing questions to Dowdy, Baral, and Bhattacharya.

Bhattacharya is one of three co-authors, with public health experts from Harvard and Oxford universities, of the Great Barrington Declaration. Issued in early October, the document states, “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.” 

The webinar panel weighed the pros and cons of both the Great Barrington Declaration and the John Snow Memorandum, a letter published in mid-October in The Lancet and since signed by thousands of scientists, researchers, and health care professionals. The Snow document argues against a herd-immunity approach as suggested in the Great Barrington Declaration.

The webinar, titled “Locking Down or Opening Up? A debate on the best path through the pandemic, discussing the John Snow Memorandum and the Great Barrington Declaration,” can be viewed here. It is the latest entry in a Johns Hopkins webinar series examining evidence-based decision making for COVID-19.

“The crisis of this pandemic has brought different groups to the table as never before, as we seek the best path forward through unprecedented challenges,” Polsky said at the start of the October 30 webinar, which was remotely attended by more than 500 people.

In addition to his affiliation with the Carey Business School, Polsky serves on the faculty of the Bloomberg School of Public Health. He also is the director of the Hopkins Business of Health Initiative, whose mission is “advancing the health of the nation and its communities through a U.S. health system driven by value, affordability, and equity.”