The Norfolk Group-made up of actual medical experts and scientists who are not shy about sharing their criticism of the government’s handling of the pandemic-has released the following documents. (Read more at https://www.norfolkgroup.org/).
Many crucial mistakes were made early on, in January, February, and early March 2020, and not corrected later. Mistakes made during this early critical window at the beginning of the pandemic affected our ability to collect data about COVID-19 and protect those most at risk and laid the groundwork for loss of public trust and confusion.
Here are some of the questions that need to be answered:
- What could have been done to better protect older high-risk Americans, so that fewer of them died or were hospitalized due to COVID-19?
- Why was there widespread questioning of infection-acquired immunity by government officials and some prominent scientists? How did this hinder our fight against the virus?
- Why were schools and universities closed despite early evidence about the enormous age-gradient in COVID-19 mortality, early data showing that schools were not major sources of spread, and early evidence that school closures would cause enormous collateral damage to the education and mental health of children and young adults?
- Why was there an almost exclusive focus on COVID-19 to the detriment of recognizing and mitigating collateral damage on other aspects of public health, including but not limited to, cancer screening and treatment, diabetes, cardio-vascular diseases, childhood vaccinations, and mental health?
- Why did the CDC fail to collect timely data to properly monitor and understand the pandemic? Why did we have to rely on studies from private initiatives and from other countries to understand the behavior of the virus and the effects of therapeutics, including vaccines?
Among the members of the Norfolk Group are two doctors that have lead the way in speaking out:
Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD; epidemiologist, health economist, and professor at Stanford University School of Medicine; founding fellow of the Academy of Science and Freedom.
Marty Makary, MD, MPH; Physician, public policy researcher, professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and member of the National Academy of Medicine.
https://www.norfolkgroup.org/executive-summary