WND 
The coronavirus adviser to Joe Biden who is advocating a national lockdown of four to six weeks had a very different view of lockdowns in March, when he argued in a Washington Post op-ed that the economic and social costs are enormous and the science points to better alternatives.
Michael T. Osterholm, a professor and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said in an interview Wednesday with Yahoo Finance that Biden’s coronavirus taskforce is preparing to “hit the ground running January 20th.”
He contended that nationwide lockdown would curb the number of new cases and hospitalizations to manageable levels until a vaccine is widely distributed.
“We could pay for a package right now to cover all of the wages, lost wages for individual workers for losses to small companies to medium-sized companies or city, state, county governments. We could do all of that,” he said. “If we did that, then we could lockdown for four-to-six weeks.”
“But how and when will these two ‘test’ nations return to normal life?” the professor asked. “And when they do, will there be a major second wave of cases? If that happens, should they simply ‘rinse and repeat’?”
The strategy he advocated in March is now promoted by epidemiologists at Stanford and Oxford advising Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis: With a 99% survival rate for most, let the healthy go about their business while protecting the vulnerable, the people over 70 with multiple life-threatening diseases.
Osterholm wrote in his Washington Post piece that “the best alternative will probably entail letting those at low risk for serious disease continue to work, keep business and manufacturing operating, and ‘run’ society, while at the same time advising higher-risk individuals to protect themselves through physical distancing and ramping up our health-care capacity as aggressively as possible.”
“With this battle plan, we could gradually build up immunity without destroying the financial structure on which our lives are based,” he said.
Osterholm has not replied to a request for comment left at his University of Minnesota office.
In October, World Health Organization envoy Dr. David Nabarro warned leaders against relying on lockdowns to handle the coronavirus, saying they should be a last resort because of the harm they cause, including making “poor people an awful lot poorer.”
“We in the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus,” Nabarro said.
Osterholm warned of a serious global pandemic in a 2005 piece for Foreign Affairs magazine in which his said that time “is running out to prepare for the next pandemic. We must act now with decisiveness and purpose.” He reprised his warning in his 2017 book “Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs.”
“The problem with the March-to-May lockdown was that it was not uniformly stringent across the country. For example, Minnesota deemed 78 percent of its workers essential,” they wrote. “To be effective, the lockdown has to be as comprehensive and strict as possible.”
One of Biden's new coronavirus task force doctors floating the idea of a 4-6 week lockdown:
âWe could pay for a package right now to cover all of the lost wages for individual workers … if we did that, then we could lockdown for 4 to 6 weeks."pic.twitter.com/zNmuQvPpIJ
— Zack Guzman (@zGuz) November 11, 2020
In contrast, Osterholm wrote for the Post in March that the nation may soon “have to acknowledge that attempting to stretch out cases in the hopes of keeping the curve reasonably flat is unworkable.”
“Then, as we wait for either our scientific or natural redeemer to come, we can start trying to put things as back to normal as we can â doing our best to protect those at high risk, but acknowledging that people will get sick, some will die, and our health-care system is going to be overrun to a great extent no matter what we do,” he wrote.
He emphasized in his Post op-ed there is “no black-or-white option here.”
“Covid-19 will go away eventually in one of two ways. Either we will develop a vaccine to prevent it, or the virus will burn itself out as the spread of infection comes to confer a form of herd immunity on the population.”
Osterholm pointed out in March that Hong Kong closed its schools while Singapore did not, “and there was hardly any difference in the rate of transmission.”
In fact, WND reported in October a study published in the British Medical Journal concluded the closing of schools in response to the coronavirus pandemic could increase the number of deaths resulting from the disease.
Limiting social distancing to those over 70, rather than comprehensive social distancing, would be a more effective way to reduce the number of deaths, the researchers said.
They concluded that “the somewhat counterintuitive results that school closures lead to more deaths are a consequence of the addition of some interventions that suppress the first wave and failure to prioritise protection of the most vulnerable people.”
Meanwhile, with the prospect of a national lockdown, at least one Joe Biden supporter is now regretting her vote.
If Iâd known Biden was open to âlockdownsâ as he now states, which is something historically unprecedented in any pandemic, and a terrifying practice, one that wonât ever end because elites love it, I would never have voted for him.
— Dr Naomi Wolf (@naomirwolf) November 9, 2020
COVID not a death sentence
Gupta and Bhattacharya emphasized that herd immunity should be the objective, contending it could be achieved in a relatively short amount of time.
COVID is not a “death sentence,” Bhattacharya argued, alluding to survival rates calculated by the Centers for Disease Control of nearly 100% for those under 70 and nearly 95% for those who are older.
In September, the CDC estimated a 99.997% survival rate for 0-19; 99.98% for ages 20-49; 99.5% for 50-69; and 94.6% for those over 70.
Those who died of coronavirus, according to the CDC, had an average of 2.6 comorbidities, meaning more than two chronic diseases along with COVID-19. Overall, the CDC says, just 6% of the people counted as COVID-19 deaths died of COVID-19 alone.
The World Health Organization said in early October it estimated 10% of the world’s population has been infected, meaning that by the U.N. body’s own account, the infection fatality rate for COVID-19 is only 0.13%. That’s a little more than one-tenth of 1%, which the WHO says is the rate for the seasonal flu.
The WHO’s estimate in March of a death rate of 3.4% sparked panic worldwide, fueling the catastrophic lockdowns.
The Great Barrington Declaration argues that #COVID19 #lockdowns should be replaced with Focused Protection. Please sign.https://t.co/07nispEacW #GBdeclaration
— Martin Kulldorff (@MartinKulldorff) October 5, 2020
"We should appreciate young adults who help generate herd immunity by living normal lives and keeping society afloat. When people throw misguided complaints at you, falsely claiming that you are endangering others, remember that the opposite is true." https://t.co/6GZSgYg6jH
— Martin Kulldorff (@MartinKulldorff) August 17, 2020
The current Centers for Disease Control data shows influenza is deadlier among children ages 0-17 than COVID-19. During the 2018-19 flu season, the CDC recorded 480 flu deaths among children ages 0-17 in the United States. About 90 died from coronavirus complications from the beginning of the pandemic through mid-August, the American Academy of Pediatrics said.
One tenth of 1% is less then the seasonal flu death toll. There is no Pandemic and never was ,not with this Roma. Death toll is and was major problem to old and feeble. Stop making more out of this China virus then it is. There are currently more people alive now then should be. We changed their destiny when we locked down in May. Live and let live, I can decide whats best for me, Thank you very much.