Six years ago in October, three epidemiologists published the Great Barrington Declaration.
asserted
epidemiologists → publish → Declaration
Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford, Sunetra Gupta of Oxford, and Martin Kulldorff of Harvard argued for what they called “Focused Protection”: protect those most vulnerable to COVID while allowing those at lower risk to resume normal life.
asserted
those → argue → life
Schools should remain open.
asserted
Schools → remain → ?
Young people should be allowed to work, play sports, and live their lives.
asserted
people → allow → lives
It was a swift and brutal campaign to discredit them.
asserted
It → discredit → them
Francis Collins, who at the time was the director of the National Institutes of Health, emailed Anthony Fauci calling the authors “fringe epidemiologists” and demanding a “quick and devastating published take down” of the Declaration’s premises.
asserted
who → email → premises
Six years later, Bhattacharya holds Collins’s old job as director of the NIH.
asserted
Bhattacharya → hold → NIH
I’m glad he’s there, but a personnel change is not a reckoning.
asserted
change → ’m → ?
I have little confidence that if officials decided to lock us down again — and frightened people enough — Americans would resist.
asserted
Americans → have → people
We would forget what happened to children, businesses, institutional trust and basic civil liberties.
asserted
what → forget → children
We would forget how quickly fear made previously unthinkable policies acceptable, and how difficult it became to question those policies once they were in place.
asserted
they → forget → place
I pushed back on school closures and lockdowns from the beginning, in deep-blue San Francisco.
asserted
I → push → Francisco
For that, I lost a career I had spent 30 years building, including 23 years at Levi Strauss & Co., where I rose to global brand president.
asserted
I → lose → president
I eventually left my city so my children could attend school.
uncertain
children → leave → school
I lost friends who treated reasoned dissent as something dangerous.
asserted
who → lose → something
On the day I resigned in 2022, I opened a production company with one goal: make a documentary about what had been done to children.
asserted
what → resign → children
Even then, two years into the COVID response, children in many cities were spending entire school days masked and undergoing regular testing.
asserted
children → spend → testing
Unvaccinated kids were excluded from activities and teams.
asserted
kids → exclude → activities
Students were sent home after outbreaks.
asserted
Students → send → outbreaks
In some places, normal schooling was disrupted for years.
asserted
schooling → disrupt → years
Private-school students played sports while public-school athletes lost seasons, opportunities and, in some cases, their shot at college.
asserted
athletes → play → college
When we began making the film, families wanted to talk.
asserted
families → begin → film
We met parents who lost a teenage son to suicide, a mom who nearly lost her daughter to drugs, kids who never graduated and athletes whose college opportunities disappeared.
asserted
opportunities → meet → drugs
We spoke with parents who went to school-board meetings and were vilified or threatened professionally, as well as doctors, teachers, and journalists who said they were punished for questioning prevailing policies.
asserted
they → speak → policies
Their stories were heartbreaking, and they wanted to tell them.
asserted
they → want → them
What turned out to be much harder than making the film was finding anyone willing to show it.
asserted
turned → turn → it
I produced the Emmy-winning Netflix documentary “Athlete A” in 2020.
asserted
I → produce → 2020
I thought that track record might at least get our calls returned.
uncertain
calls → think → ?
It didn’t.
asserted
It → do → ?
Mainstream outlets had little appetite for revisiting COVID policy, while conservative outlets told us they were done with COVID.
asserted
they → have → COVID
But COVID isn’t done with our children.
asserted
COVID → do → children
Academic performance remains below pre-pandemic levels.
asserted
performance → remain → levels
Chronic absenteeism remains a serious problem.
asserted
absenteeism → remain → ?
Families continue to deal with learning setbacks and mental-health consequences that did not disappear when the headlines did.
asserted
headlines → continue → setbacks
Six years later, we should be able to ask difficult questions about what happened and whether the extraordinary sacrifices demanded of children were justified.
asserted
sacrifices → ask → children
Now, just past the sixth anniversary of the Great Barrington Declaration, “GENERATION COVID” will finally see the light of day on SalemNow on November 13.
asserted
COVID → see → November
We made this film for everyone.
asserted
We → make → everyone
It is the human face of pandemic restrictions: real families, real losses, and children who were asked to bear extraordinary burdens despite facing comparatively zero risk from the virus.
asserted
who → ask → virus
The authors of the Great Barrington Declaration were asking for proportionality.
asserted
authors → ask → proportionality
Yet we closed playgrounds and classrooms, canceled sports, masked toddlers learning to speak, and told an entire generation that ordinary childhood could be suspended indefinitely for the greater good.
uncertain
childhood → close → good
…and 10 more, not listed.
The Aporia
