Duke health's 2025 policy would ban an 11 year old kid from visiting his sick or dying father

 by Vinay Prasad

Duke University has long been known for illogical and unethical covid policy. I wrote about it a few years ago for Sensible Medicine.

Sensible Medicine

Duke University Announces Their Fall 22 Restriction Line-Up

College kids have been vaccinated at high rates. They have also had COVID-19 at high rates. They generally fall in the age range of 18 to 22, and are among the most healthy people in society. Put these facts together and it clear: college kids are fine, and should face no restrictions going forward into a world of endemic COVID-19. They will all even…

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2 years ago · 416 likes · 123 comments · Vinay Prasad

Now Duke is back again with a new unproven policy— a 2025 visitor restriction policy that lacks evidence and devalues human visitation. Take a look

What specifically are the restrictions?

Just think about how absurd these rules are. 13 year olds are permitted but 11 year olds are banned. Duke seems to think that turning 12 magically means a person is less likely to be an asymptomatic or pauci-symptomatic viral carrier

Duke also thinks 2 people visiting is safe but 3 is dangerous. But if one goes to the car, a third can come up. In fact, twenty people can come up if they come in pairs.

Duke’s policy is not only not evidence based, it reveals a serious failure of basic common sense.

Here are some thoughts:

1. Duke should not be able to set capricious visitor rules. We need a Patients Bill of Rights that bans hospitals from setting infection control policies that lack data.

2. Duke will contribute to moral anguish. Kids will be denied access to sick parents. Sick grandparents are denied the joy of visitation

   Here is how one doctor describes it.

   

3. I think this decision speaks to how poor the faculty and administrators are at Duke. They lack the ability to formulate sound policy and Duke has had some of the poorest covid policies throughout the pandemic.

4. CMS should penalize hospitals that participate in dehumanizing and unproven infectious control policies.

5. If Duke and other hospitals setting deranged rules (Dana Farber masking 2 year olds for instance) believes these policies works, why won't they randomize wards to the policy or a liberal policy as part of a cluster RCT? Why has public health repeatedly, for years, refused to conduct trials to test their conjectures.

6. 
   

7. Previously, we researched all of the evidence supporting these policies and found them lacking. There has been no new evidence since then.

In short, the American public should continue to distrust public health and hospital epidemiologists because these people make things up. Their policies are so illogical, they permit 13 year olds but not 11 year olds— a distinction that has no basis.

CMS should restrict payments to hospitals that engage in respiratory virus theater. And I will conclude with 2 more closing thoughts.

https://www.drvinayprasad.com/p/duke-healths-2025-policy-would-ban