Subscribe!
Rally to protest “excessive quarantine” 12:30pm, Sat, 4/25 at the RI State House
Rhode Islanders Against Excessive Quarantine is hosting a protest today at 12:30 PM on the RI State House Lawn.
Editor’s Note: This is the letter sent to Governor Raimondo expressing the reasoning for the group’s petition.
Dear Governor Raimondo,
We write, first, to express our appreciation of your efforts to keep Rhode Islanders safe. Information was scarce at the beginning of this crisis and leaders across the world were trying to do what was right. The COVID-19 pandemic is a public health emergency unlike any that our generation had yet to experience. It was reasonable to issue executive orders to slow the spread of the virus in an effort to “flatten the curve”.
The second, and primary, reason we are writing is that there is now information demonstrating that the extent and severity of the executive orders in Rhode Island are misguided and a threat to public health. Further below are two, but not all, of the misguided beliefs that plunged us into this social crisis. They imply that the support for the executive orders currently in place is based on false information, creating a threat to peaceful governance by undermining public trust. On account of the information further below, among much more emerging daily, we petition that:
A) No executive orders that restrict business operations on account of their status as “essential” or “non-essential”, or for any reason other than (1) deliberate violation of social distancing when achievable or (2) deliberate violation of basic sanitary practices to prevent spreads of infection, be renewed past May 9th.
B) No executive orders restricting social, civic, or religious organizations from meeting, for any reason other than (1) deliberate violations of social distancing when achievable or (2) deliberate violation of basic sanitary practices to prevent spreads of infection, be renewed past May 9th.
In addition, any legislation that is not communicated with clear goals dictating when such legislation will be terminated, along with a public, data-driven, and falsifiable justification for that legislation, should be voted against by state representatives.
We encourage that anything apart from these two demands be met with civil disobedience by all organizations, businesses, and individuals alike beginning May 9th. We do not encourage unsafe practices such as close contact with the elderly or at-risk. We believe that nearly all persons above 50 or with pre-existing conditions such as hypertension, obesity, chronic lung disease, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease ought to practice extreme social distancing until the R0 subsides. Below are a few, among many, of the reasons the continuance of your original executive orders is not acceptable.
1) The infection fatality rate for COVID-19 has been overestimated. The March 9th Imperial College Report, upon which the national distancing measures were begun, estimated an infection fatality rate of 0.9%.[1] However, results for COVID-19 antibody seroprevalence in Santa Clara County, California, recently yielded results that, if accurate, imply an infection fatality rate of .12% – .2%.[2] The actual number of infections could be anywhere from 50x-80x the amount of confirmed cases. New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo released data that implied as many as 2.7 million persons in NY may have already contracted the novel coronavirus. When taking the current number of fatalities from COVID-19 as of April 24th, this implies an infection fatality rate of only .05%.[3] Yet another sampling in Chelsea, MA, indicated that up to 30% of the persons had antibodies.[4] Our desire to relax restrictions has to do with facts informing decisions.
2) The better our social distancing measures are right now, the worse our second spike will be, and our local officials have not been honest with Rhode Islanders about this fact. It is possible that by being the most aggressive state this Spring, we will be the most vulnerable in the Fall. Researchers at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health predicted that the better current lockdowns are, the worse the second surge will be, unless lockdowns are held indefinitely.[5] Similar predictions are clearly outlined in the March 9th Imperial College Model. All models and reports since early March acknowledged a second wave of infections unless there was an indefinite lockdown. So many Rhode Islanders believe that relaxing distancing early will cause the second wave, or cause it to be worse (when it is the opposite), or that the more strictly we distance, the more quickly we can get back to normal. These are lies that governors must take responsibility for allowing to spread. Entire democractic socialist countries have taken more targeted and rational approaches than we are taking now, and at the moment are close to herd immunity, a concept that many have derided but is being vindicated each week.[6]
Unless the state’s official plan is to plunge most of its residents into poverty and despair by restricting businesses and basic human social life until a vaccine is widely available (up to a year), then distancing measures must begin to be eased immediately, so that herd immunity can begin to build among those who are not at-risk. We believe that more targeted approaches can achieve our shared goal of protecting public health while also beginning the process of trying to avoid a social catastrophe of proportions few of us have ever dreamed of seeing.
Sincerely,
Rhode Islanders Against Excessive Quarantine.
[1] Neil M Ferguson, Daniel Laydon, Gemma Nedjati-Gilani et al. Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand. Imperial College London (16-03-2020), doi: https://doi.org/10.25561/77482.
[2] COVID-19 Antibody Seroprevalence in Santa Clara County, California, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463
[3] It is undoubtedly higher. <https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/what-we-can-can-t-take-away-new-york-s-n1191106>.
[4] <https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/04/17/business/nearly-third-200-blood-samples-taken-chelsea-show-exposure-coronavirus/>
[5] Specifically: ““In the case of a 20-week period of social distancing with 60% reduction in rate of infection, for example, the resurgence peak size is nearly the same as the peak size of the uncontrolled epidemic.” Social distancing strategies for curbing the COVID-19 epidemic doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.22.20041079
[6]<https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/22/no-lockdown-in-sweden-but-stockholm-could-see-herd-immunity-in-weeks.html>