December 16, 2020, 1:45 pm
Yet another Trump appointee was advocating for the deadly “herd immunity” strategy that would have killed millions of U.S. residents, but this time he specifically called for letting “infants, kids, teens,” and general “young people” become infected. This was exposed via a memo sent out by House Majority Whip James Clyburn which called out Department of Health and Human Services Senior Advisor Paul Alexander.
Advertisement
Hide
“Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk,” said Alexander in his emails, “so we use them to develop herd … we want them infected.”
Advertisement
Hide
BREAKING: New memo reveals Trump admin official pushed “herd immunity” plan to let coronavirus spread widely among infants, youth and younger adults w/o other conditions. Memo via @WhipClyburn quotes official as saying: “We use them to develop herd…we want them infected.” pic.twitter.com/BiZ4VLUXWf
— John Kruzel (@johnkruzel) December 16, 2020
Clyburn notes that this strategizing by Alexander went “as far back as June 2020,” about when the world was finding out that kids and infants can die or develop serious complications from COVID-19, though it is rare. Because herd immunity requires massive portions of a population to be immune for herd immunity to work — up to 95 percent for diseases like polio — some babies definitely would have died if Alexander had his way.
Advertisement
Hide
The memo also states that there is evidence Alexander and the entire administration “always knew” that “cases will rise” due to their policies while publicly trying to pass blame for this onto public health officials. You might recall that Alexander was the same Trump appointee who was caught in emails trying to muzzle Dr. Anthony Fauci specifically on the subject of the virus’s effect on children.
“I continue to have an issue with kids getting tested and repeatedly and even university students in a widespread manner … and I disagree with Dr. Fauci on this. Vehemently,” Alexander wrote on August 27.
Meanwhile, public health officials have been trying to explain this whole time how herd immunity not only doesn’t work as a strategy, it’s not a strategy at all. In an interview with The Atlantic, Yale University health-policy professor Howard Forman explained that “there’s never been a real case of herd immunity through infection.”
Advertisement
Hide
“In fact, the term itself didn’t arise until just a few decades ago, when we had vaccination programs,” he said. “There are cases where, as large waves of infection passed through communities, you had lower levels of outbreak in most years, and then you would have epidemic outbreaks other years. That probably is the closest thing, but that’s not herd immunity.”
Alexander, meanwhile, argued for keeping colleges open to increase spread among young adults (regardless of whether they were at-risk or not young because not all college students are in their 20s). He also pushed for reports of the illness disproportionately affecting people of color, which he called “very accurate,” to be suppressed because “the media and Democrat [sic] antagonists will use against the president.”
As the U.S. continues to break its own records for daily coronavirus infections and deaths, blowing past 300,000 fatalities and overwhelming hospitals, many are not happy about this news.
Advertisement
Hide
“300,000 dead from genocidal policies like this,” wrote Texas congressional candidate Mike Sigel. “Trump officials should be investigated for crimes against the American people.”
*First Published: December 16, 2020, 1:45 pm
0 Comments