Covid-19

Debate between Chris Bryant and Bob Stewart

Thursday 22nd October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I want to talk about a dangerous bit of fake science that is doing the rounds—the so-called Great Barrington declaration which calls for focused protection for the vulnerable and ending all lockdowns and restrictions so that everyone else should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal. It sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? Idyllic. Some 6,300 people have signed the declaration. That sounds impressive, but that is a tiny, tiny proportion of all the medical professionals in the world, the vast majority of whom dismiss that approach out of hand.

Many of the signatories to the declaration are not world-leading epidemiologists and virologists. Many of them are homeopaths and self-certified therapists. They include the famous Dr Johnny Bananas, the Rev. Booker Clownn, Dr Person Fakename and Mr Matt Hancock, although not the one of this parish. I remember what fake science did over the MMR vaccine when lots of journalists paid court to one man, Dr Andrew Wakefield, simply because he had the title Doctor in front of his name. That caused immeasurable harm to a very important vaccine programme.

Some of the people who signed the declaration told us earlier this year that the virus would just melt away by the summer and others guaranteed that there would not be a second wave. Yet some people still support them. None of the declaration’s assertions is supported by evidence. They do not even pretend to be. There are no references to peer-reviewed research; they are simply assertions.

It is completely wrong to call people who believe all this stuff “nutcases”. I did earlier this week and I wish that I had not used that word the other day. I have worked long enough in acquired brain injury and as a personal counsellor to others to know that that is wrong. I apologise. But this really is a fringe opinion shared by conspiracy theorists, funded by hard-right economic libertarian extremists in the United States of America and advocated entirely by fake scientists. Ignorance is one thing. Deliberate ignorance really is stupidity.

At the heart of the declaration is the belief that we need to acquire herd immunity by letting everybody get infected. The facts—and there are no alternative facts here—are that there is no evidence that contracting covid-19 grants long-term immunity to future infection. We already know that one can catch it twice and it is not yet a year old. Other coronaviruses only grant temporary immunity. Fact.

[Bob Stewart]

To support the hon. Gentleman’s case, may I point out that if we could achieve herd immunity, we would not contract diseases like measles? We still get them, so herd immunity is impossible to achieve.

[Chris Bryant]

In this case, the point is that we will not achieve herd immunity just by trying to let everyone get the disease. That is an immoral proposition. We have all heard the line that this virus is not that dangerous and is less dangerous than flu. I am sure that we have all had emails about it. The facts—and again there are no alternative facts here—are that covid is more easily transmitted than flu and has more complications for more people. Between January and August 2020, there were 48,168 deaths due to covid-19—not associated with it—compared with 13,619 deaths due to pneumonia and 394 deaths due to influenza. The number of deaths due to covid up to 31 August this year was higher than those due to influenza and pneumonia in every single year since 1959, including years when we did not have a vaccine for flu.

The other theme of the great declaration is supposed to be focused protection. Again, that sounds great—“let’s protect the most vulnerable”—but we cannot just shut the elderly and vulnerable away and throw away the key. They do not live in hermetically sealed units, funnily enough. They rely on nurses, carers, home helps and family members. All those people would presumably have to be locked away. Is somebody going to suggest that the most vulnerable communities—in fact, the BAME community—are en masse all going to be locked away, as well as the overweight, no doubt, and all the men? Of course, that is a complete and utter nonsense. By one estimate, we would be incarcerating a quarter of the whole UK population.

There is a cruelty at the heart of this proposal: it is basically survival of the fittest. Yes, it does make me angry when people propose it. It makes me angry for those who have lost loved ones this year, who seem to be ignored. It makes me angry for the NHS staff who have slogged their way through the misery on our behalf and need us all to realise that there is a much better creed than survival of the fittest, and it is that we are all in this together.