BY JESSIE HELLMANN
\nThe Hill<\/p>\n
Anthony Fauci<\/a><\/span>, the nation\u2019s top infectious disease expert, on Thursday called a herd immunity proposal being embraced by the White House \u201ctotal nonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n The\u00a0so-called Great Barrington Declaration authored by a small group of doctors calls for quickly reaching herd immunity by letting COVID-19 spread uncontrolled among the young and healthy population while protecting the vulnerable.<\/p>\n Herd immunity, typically achieved with a vaccine, is the point at which a disease, like measles, stops spreading widely throughout a population because enough people have already had it and are immune to it. It’s not clear if prior COVID-19 infection confers long-term immunity to the disease.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you just let things rip and let the infection go \u2026 that, quite frankly, George, is ridiculous,\u201d Fauci said Thursday, addressing ABC\u2019s\u00a0George Stephanopoulos<\/a><\/span>\u00a0in an interview.<\/p>\n Fauci, who appeared impassioned while railing against the proposal, noted that 30 percent of the population has underlying health conditions that makes them vulnerable. Additionally, older adults, even those who are otherwise healthy, are far more likely than young adults to become seriously ill if they get COVID-19.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat that will do is that there will be so many people in the community that you can’t shelter, that you can’t protect, who are gonna get sick and get serious consequences,\u201d Fauci said.<\/p>\n \u201cSo this idea that we have the power to protect the vulnerable is total nonsense because history has shown that that’s not the case. And, and if you talk to anybody who has any experience in epidemiology and infectious diseases, they will tell you that that is risky, and you’ll wind up with many more infections of vulnerable people, which will lead to hospitalizations and deaths. So I think that we just got to look that square in the eye and say it’s nonsense,” he said.<\/p>\n The declaration has been embraced by Scott Atlas, neuroradiologist and adviser to Trump who has no obvious expertise on infectious diseases.<\/p>\n