Supplemental Declaration of Dr. Bhattacharya — Brach v. Newsom

Record facts

U.S. District Court, Central District of California · No. 2:20-cv-06472-SVW-AFM · Doc. 52 · 2020-08-25 · Docket on CourtListener

Full text

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Supp. Decl. of Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya ISO TRO 
Case No. 2:20-cv-06472  
 
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HARMEET K. DHILLON (SBN: 207873) 
harmeet@dhillonlaw.com  
MARK P. MEUSER (SBN: 231335) 
mmeuser@dhillonlaw.com  
GREGORY R. MICHAEL (SBN: 306814) 
gmichael@dhillonlaw.com  
DHILLON LAW GROUP INC. 
177 Post Street, Suite 700 
San Francisco, California 94108 
Telephone: (415) 433-1700 
Facsimile: (415) 520-6593 
 
ROBERT DUNN (SBN: 275600) 
rdunn@eimerstahl.com 
EIMER STAHL LLP 
99 South Almaden Blvd., Suite 662 
San Jose, CA 95113 
(669) 231-8755 
 
RYAN J. WALSH (pro hac vice pending) 
rwalsh@eimerstahl.com 
JOHN K. ADAMS (pro hac vice pending) 
jadams@eimerstahl.com 
AMY C. MILLER (pro hac vice pending) 
amiller@eimerstahl.com  
EIMER STAHL LLP 
10 East Doty Street, Suite 800 
Madison, WI 53703 
(608) 441-5798 
 
Attorneys for Plaintiffs 
 
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR 
THE CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 
 
MATTHEW BRACH, et al. 
                    Plaintiffs, 
           v. 
GAVIN NEWSOM, et al. 
                    Defendants. 
Case No.: 2:20-CV-06472-SVW-AFM 
SUPPLEMENTAL DECLARATION 
OF DR. JAYANTA BHATTACHARYA 
IN SUPPORT OF APPLICATION 
FOR TEMPORARY RESTRAINING 
ORDER 
Judge:          Hon. Stephen V. Wilson 
Courtroom:  10A 
DocuSign Envelope ID: 5D8CA073-CEA5-454C-B1DE-3A0FE985B908
Case 2:20-cv-06472-SVW-AFM   Document 52   Filed 08/25/20   Page 1 of 3   Page ID #:2749

 
 
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Supp. Decl. of Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya ISO TRO 
Case No. 2:20-cv-06472  
 
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Jayanta Bhattacharya declares, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1746:  
1. 
I am a resident of Los Altos, California, I am 52-years-old, and I am 
competent to render this declaration. 
2. 
I previously filed a declaration in this case in support of Plaintiff’s 
application for a temporary restraining order, and my background and education are 
detailed in that declaration. See Dkt. 28-3 ¶¶ 2–15.  
 
New Scientific Evidence Confirms that School Closures are Harmful 
to Children and the Risk of Child Transmission and Infection is 
Negligible  
 
3. 
Since my initial declaration in this case, I have identified several new 
studies related to the safety of school reopening.  All of this evidence confirms the 
major thesis of my declaration – opening schools can be done safely, children play a 
negligible role in disease spread to adults, and the mortality risk from COVID-19 
infection is small in children. 
4. 
One of the largest studies in the world on coronavirus in schools, carried 
out in 100 institutions in the UK, recently confirmed that “there is very little evidence 
that the virus is transmitted” in schools.1 Indeed, the president of the Royal College of 
Pediatrics and Child Health and a member of the government advisory group Sage 
confirmed that “there is very little evidence that the virus is transmitted in schools” 
based on this extensive study. Id.  
5. 
A study of 23 family disease clusters in Greece, published on Aug. 7th in 
the Journal of Medical Virology, found that in 91% of the clusters, an adult was the first 
person to be infected. Their contact tracing effort attempted to clarify the direction of 
disease spread by careful questioning about the relative timing of the development of 
                                                          
1 Sian Griffiths, Pupils pose little risk of spreading COVID, The Sunday Times (Aug. 9, 
2020), available at https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/pupils-pose-no-risk-of-spreading-
covid-27q6zfd9l.  
DocuSign Envelope ID: 5D8CA073-CEA5-454C-B1DE-3A0FE985B908
Case 2:20-cv-06472-SVW-AFM   Document 52   Filed 08/25/20   Page 2 of 3   Page ID #:2750

 
 
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Supp. Decl. of Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya ISO TRO 
Case No. 2:20-cv-06472  
 
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symptoms. They found no evidence of either child to adult spread, or even of child to 
child spread. They concluded that “[w]hile children become infected by SARS‐ CoV‐
2, they do not appear to transmit infection to others. Furthermore, children more 
frequently have an asymptomatic or mild course compared to adults.”2 
6. 
Contrary to the anecdotes and newspaper articles cited by the Defendants, 
the overwhelming bulk of scientific studies that have examined the topic – including the 
best studies, which take pains to distinguish correlation from causation – find that 
children play a limited role in spreading COVID-19 infection to adults and that children 
themselves face minimal risk of poor outcomes if they should become infected.  
 
I declare under penalty of perjury, under the laws of the United States of America 
and the State of California, that the foregoing is true and correct. 
 
Dated: August 12, 2020  
 
_______________________________ 
Jayanta Bhattacharya, M.D., Ph.D. 
 
 
                                                          
2 Helena C. Maltezou  Rengina Vorou  Kalliopi Papadima, et al. (2020) “Transmission 
dynamics of SARS‐ CoV‐ 2 within families with children in Greece: a study of 23 
clusters” Journal of Medical Virology, https://doi.org/10.1002/jmv.26394 (accessed 
August 12, 2020). 
DocuSign Envelope ID: 5D8CA073-CEA5-454C-B1DE-3A0FE985B908
Case 2:20-cv-06472-SVW-AFM   Document 52   Filed 08/25/20   Page 3 of 3   Page ID #:2751

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