Jay Bhattacharya
Jayanta "Jay" Bhattacharya (born 1968) is an Indian American professor of medicine, economics, and health research policy at Stanford University. He is the director of Stanford's Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging. His research focuses on the economics of health care.
Jay Bhattacharya | |
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Bhattacharya in 2020 | |
| Born | Jayanta Bhattacharya 1968 (age 55–56) Kolkata, India |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Stanford University (BA, AM, MD, PhD) |
| Known for | Epidemiology of COVID-19; Great Barrington Declaration |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Medicine/surgery; epidemiology; health economics |
| Institutions | Stanford University |
In 2021, Bhattacharya was opposed to lockdowns and mask mandates as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. With Martin Kulldorff and Sunetra Gupta, he was a co-author in 2020 of the Great Barrington Declaration, which advocated lifting COVID-19 restrictions on lower-risk groups to develop herd immunity through widespread infection, while promoting the fringe notion that vulnerable people could be simultaneously protected from the virus. The declaration was criticized as being unethical and infeasible by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization.