Scientists opposed to COVID-19 lockdowns were viewed as “fringe” partly because those calling for draconian restrictions had more social media influence, a study has shown. John Ioannidis, a Stanford University professor and expert in medical data science, analyzed the expertise of scientists that signed either the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD) or the John Snow Memorandum. The GBD, first published in October 2020, called for a more nuanced approach to the one-size-fits-all restrictions that had been imposed on much of Western society. The scientists behind the declaration prioritized the protection of vulnerable people while allowing immunity to build up in the rest of the public to avoid collateral damage on society, education, and public health. The John Snow Memorandum (JSM) was signed in July 2021 by over 12o scientists as a rebuke to the GBD. The memorandum was printed in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet, which argued that such a policy of …