"The ultimate solution is for every single Jamaican to change behavior, to learn to live with the coronavirus and COVID-19 disease."
"Lockdowns only serve one purpose and that is to give you a bit of breathing space so you just stop everything, the virus stops moving, and while you've got that breathing space, you should be really building up your testing, building up your contact tracing, building up your local organization."
"The requirement that we had in Saskatchewan with the proof of vaccination or the option for the proof of negative test had two goals: one was to convince additional people to go out and get vaccinated, and two was to reduce transmission of COVID."
"Focus the testing strategically around protecting our three most vulnerable populations: our older residents in nursing homes, health care providers, and protecting our first responders."
"The purpose of what we are doing right now is to avoid the overwhelming of the healthcare system."
"Vaccinations are based in part on the idea of herd immunity... beating diseases is a team sport."
"As more of us are inoculated, so the protection afforded by the vaccines will gradually replace the restrictions."
"For the last few weeks, we've been treated to 'flatten the curve, flatten the curve,' and I've been all in on that."
"What we're trying to do is flatten the curve."
"The only way to get our lives back, to get our economy back, is to beat the virus."
"The best way you can get to where you want to go is to just say we're going to vaccinate as many people as we can, we're going to get as many people boosted as we can, and we're going to get that level down."
"The best way as a vehicle to opening the country in a safe way is to prudently use public health measures."
"Coercion is a poor tactic in public health; it breeds distrust and ultimately undermines itself in terms of effectiveness."
"Reduce the density, do testing, isolate those that test positive. That's what this is about."
"We need to flatten that down... that would ultimately have less deaths."
"Testing is how you monitor the rate of infection and you control for it."
"We are literally driving blind as if we have no headlights at night because testing is the cornerstone of stopping an outbreak." - Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, Epidemiologist
"Just keep it up because this is gonna get us out of it. This is the best and only great public health tool."
"To bend the curve, yes, you have to test, yes, you have to trace, yes, you have to isolate, yes, you have to phase the reopening and you have to socially distance."
"In public health we just want to stop the virus from spreading to the next person."
"Restricting testing to only people with obvious symptoms is not a good idea."
"We need to recognize why people do the things they do and approach the public health angle with love."
"Thank you WHO, you want to do a very aggressive contact tracing, you want to do as much testing as you can."
"We should stop focusing on preventing transmission and start focusing on hospitalization and death."
"We ought to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. We ought to be able to safely open, but we need resources to open. You need to be in a position where you can take testing rapidly and know whether a person is in fact infected."
"Masks are probably the single most important non-pharmaceutical intervention that we have as societies reopen."
"The dominating drive of this was to make sure that this is done in the safest way possible."
"We want to get rid of it, we want to have very few deaths as possible."
"Our strategy will continue to protect senior citizens and other vulnerable populations."
"We've got to do several things to protect us: care for the sick, ensure others aren't sickened, and make sure our economy is able to function."
"Our first strategy is, of course, to ensure the American people are vaccinated. 1400 people a day are still dying in the United States of America."
"We've got to be very cautious... it's a time to go very cautiously with changes."
"We should use the public health effort as a vehicle and a pathway to get to safe reopening."
"Begin with an abundance of caution, which is what we failed to do."
"We have to aggressively vaccinate. There's no real option here."
"China wants the world to focus... on the strengths of a system that has now brought the epidemic under control."
"Lockdowns were designed to prevent the spread from overwhelming the healthcare system."
"The entire presupposition of your argument here is that we were going to protect the older and vulnerable."
"These decisions might seem really difficult and hard to kind of untangle even two years in but the fact is, we are one country with many different subpopulations." - Dr. Craig Spencer
"Social distancing is going to remain until we have widespread vaccination."
"It is a stark reminder that any policy that obstructs or inhibits vaccine production risks being self-defeating for the rich countries."
"These measures are the bare minimum we should be doing to try to shift the peak, to slow the rise in cases so that healthcare systems are less overwhelmed."
"Our strategy is to save lives and to protect the NHS."
"Containment of COVID-19 is possible in all affected countries and should be number one."
"We now have a national strategy to beat COVID-19. It's comprehensive, it's based on science, not politics."
"Shield the most vulnerable and allow everybody else to go out and work."
"China managed to wrest control of its pandemic through the countrywide implementation of a contact tracing app, a centralized epidemic response system, and 14,000 health checkpoints."
"Vaccination was the only way to stop the pandemic."
"Put this epidemic behind us as quickly as possible."
"All of us can reduce the number of cases by spreading the word about symptoms and just acting sensibly whilst still enjoying life."
"We need to stay committed to containment, and I still believe containment and control is the goal."
"Maintaining lockdowns for many months may even have worse consequences than an epidemic wave that runs an acute course."
"The faster we'll limit contagion, the faster we'll save lives."
"We want to give people a break from things like mask wearing when levels are low and then have the ability to reach for them again should things get worse."
"The success of getting people vaccinated, the strategies that were being implemented by the administration."
"Focus protection would allow society to achieve herd immunity and return to normalcy in three to six months."
"We should direct our efforts toward protecting people at high risk for severe illness."
"The Great Barrington Declaration argued that instead of broad-based lockdowns, we should be focusing on the protection of vulnerable groups."
"All of the approaches that can be taken to stop social transmission should be the first order."
"Vaccination is the best, fastest primary way we're going to put it in the rearview mirror."
"But I think what it should be really gauged to do is prevent the bulk of transmission, be something that people can actually do, and not discourage people from getting tested and not be one size fits all."
"Yes, this is a big package of measures that we're announcing but it will only work as a fourth step if people are cautious."
"Cases dropping off means less people are going to get sick."
"Scaring people... making life very uncomfortable if you are not vaccinated."
"Paying people to get vaccinated... seems like it'd be the most effective."
"The question is how do you keep control of the virus?"
"Herd immunity was never the government strategy."
"We're not going to get our economy back in shape and the millions of people back to work until we beat this virus."
"The CDC is taking aggressive action in containment and mitigation efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus."
"We need to prioritize who receives the vaccine first."
"With the tools we have in place now plus vaccination, we could bring transmission so low."
"If we had just protected them in a targeted way we would have saved countless lives for almost no cost."
"Sweden did this, made the same mistake. If they had just protected their nursing homes, their death rate would have been vastly lower."
"If you focus on this point, I think you actually have a chance of getting some sort of policy that may contain the spread of coronavirus a little better."
"Containment tracing, if you know who has it, you can contain it better."
"Masks are more guaranteed to protect from coronavirus than a vaccine."
"If all Americans wore masks for six to twelve weeks, they'd bring the pandemic under control."
"We need a comprehensive strategy that should include vaccine equity, adequate financing, and clear investment strategies."
"One of the most important things is keeping those people who are infected or might be affected away from the rest of the population."
"When people re-emerge from a shelter-in-place ordinance there are less active cases in the community so it sort of dials down or partially resets the clock."
"I'd like to say that it'd be great to have some sort of plan in place around vaccination rates."
"We know what to do. We know how to get control of this epidemic in the U.S., but we're not doing it."
"If they could change one thing at all it would be attitude, it would be approach to how this virus is viewed by the public."
"Vaccinate everybody starting with people at high risk, and get the jump on turning the thing endemic."
"If you want to get more people vaccinated, give me season tickets. That'd be a good idea."
"You're not supposed to quarantine healthy people."
"We will never get this virus under control without a vaccine."
"It's vital to delay the spread of the disease and reduce the number of people needing hospital treatment at any one time."
"The best way to beat this piece of news is for everybody to get their booster."
"Making people feel safe means we have to have a smaller case count, have to have adequate testing, have the ability to track and trace."
"We want to do the least harm for the most people, the most good."
"Social distancing is just keeping the case rate per day at a level that hospitals can manage and therefore lowering mortality by not us being overwhelmed."
"Making a direct appeal to vaccinated Americans builds over a coalition of the vaccinated."
"Our focus from the federal government is on getting more people vaccinated, and that's where we feel we can use our resources best."
"The Chinese are doing a pretty incredible job here in reducing the R nought very considerably."
"Vaccinating kids, my thought was we would never close schools again."
"We might not need boosters for all... I think the unvaccinated have largely had and recovered from covid-19."
"We're going to be much harder in trying to stop with non-pharmacological interventions the spread of anything new that comes."
"The best way I believe... is not to shut everything down and pray for a vaccine to arrive. It's to hope that the people who get it are young and healthy."
"For the most part they shouldn't want to get tested."
"Each day that we can delay an extra case is a big win for the system."
"We don't want to stop everyone getting the disease because we need enough people to get the disease, that society develops some herd immunity."
"In every country that has controlled it without a lockdown... they're doing four things: rigorous testing, rigorous contact tracing, quarantine anybody who's found positive, and everybody's wearing masks."
"We needed to really lock down for something like six weeks and then have excellent testing and tracing."
"Distributing the vaccine to all citizens as soon as it's available would stop the pandemic."
"This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated... despite America having unprecedented and successful vaccination program."
"Literally if they just bribed, not even a contest, just a coupon, just like cause the cost of giving everyone in America twenty dollars is probably less than what the cost would be of this disease just continuing."
"We all know what the best policy is. I mean, by this point, two years later, we know that the best way to prevent spread is for people to get vaccinated."
"Testing, tracing, isolating – that's how South Korea did it, and they've been successful."
"Protect the people that are in danger but allow the healthy people to do what they need to do."
"It's very hard to summarize... the urgency, the necessity... now is the time we have one chance to do this."
"The Great Barrington Declaration was basically a proposal that we protect high-risk seniors take special measures and but the rest of society kind of move on and we'll work our way through the pandemic."
"We can reduce suffering in this country, we can put people back to work, we can gain control of this virus. That's what the American Rescue Plan does." - President Biden
"The best defense is a population that has herd immunity."
"Social distancing, household isolation, staying at home, avoiding all unnecessary contact – it works, it will save lives."
"Strict border controls on China and more testing would have been a much better idea than lockdown."
"Testing, aggressive testing. We can't fight the enemy we can't see."
"We need the right to recover...pay people to stay home, keep communities safe."
"The goal seems to be to stop the disease from spreading rather than to reduce the harm from the disease."
"Quarantine is the answer to opening up our economy sooner."
"They convinced themselves that it was sufficiently safe to vaccinate their way out of this."
"Testing every single person in a population every single day would know who to quarantine and the virus would burn out pretty quick."
"Brazil could be teaching a lesson to the entire world on how to respond to a pandemic by leveraging its history, its network of primary care."
"Test trace isolate is the Chinese strategy and we know it is working."
"The threat is real. But pessimism is also unrealistic, and there are many steps that could be taken to contain the threat."
"Our best chance of defeating the disease and protecting lives is most likely herd immunity."
"China has done an amazingly impressive job of bringing the epidemic under control; it flattened the curve."
"Vaccinating large numbers of a population can prevent the spread of a disease."
"Flattening the curve is reducing our R0, making sure that the peak number of individuals that are simultaneously infected occurs later and that that peak is lower."
"If somebody invented a drug tomorrow that reduced all hospitalizations, we would put it in the water supply."
"Vaccines are the off-ramp, but they don't work if you don't get them."
"The first point is that with small numbers of cases the hope is that you can actually extinguish the virus at that point from contacting."