Dr. Jay Bhattacharya: Test and tracing only creates panic
In this 4-minute video, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya says that the reliance on testing and contact tracing to curb the spread of SARS-CoV-2 is a mistake. He cites the example of mass testing in schools and says the following: “You open a school and you do a lot of testing in the school, you’re gonna find cases…If the result of that is not to protect the lives of the people who have the infection…The only purpose then [of testing] is to create a panic.”
He adds that testing should only be used to help in managing the illness of the patient, not to simply get the number of patients. Tests, he says, should be used in settings where it will be useful, for example, in elderly homes, where the results of the tests can be clinically meaningful.
With regards to contact tracing, Dr. Bhattacharya says that it works when the disease is extremely rare and the transmission from person to person is contained. In respiratory diseases, where vast number of people are affected, contact tracing cannot be used to control the spread of the disease. He adds that contact tracing could have been effective in the early days of the pandemic, but it is now impossible to sustain the efforts as the disease is now too widespread.
Editor’s Note: Everything that Dr. Bhattacharya said in this video is logical – you don’t need to have a degree in medicine to understand what he means. Why are governments spending resources trying to trace contacts when all they find are individuals exhibiting no symptoms, or have no need for medical care? [New researches are also showing that coronavirus transmissions happen indoors, read New Study: Nearly all coronavirus transmission occur indoors]. Why are governments refusing to listen to experts who are saying that lockdowns and all coronavirus policies must be lifted.
