Trump has tapped Stanford University health economist Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health. In 2020, Bhattacharya was a main author of the Great Barrington Declaration, which argued against COVID lockdowns at a time when no vaccines were available. Instead, Bhattacharya said COVID should be allowed to spread without mitigation in order to create so-called herd immunity. The World Health Organization called the unprecedented plan “scientifically and ethically problematic,” saying it would result in far more unnecessary infections, suffering and death.