On November 15, Jay Bhattacharya and Sten Vermund debated the resolution, "Focused protection, as set forth in the Great Barrington Declaration, should be the general principle of public health management of highly infectious respiratory virus pandemics." The event was produced by The Soho Forum, a monthly debate series presented by Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes Reason.
For the affirmative: Jay Bhattacharya is a professor of medicine at Stanford University. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and the Stanford Freeman Spogli Institute. His research focuses on the economics of health care around the world with a particular emphasis on the health and well-being of vulnerable populations. His peer-reviewed research has been published in economics, statistics, legal, medical, public health, and health policy journals. He holds an MD and Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University. Bhattacharya was one of three main co-signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration in October 2020.
