herd immunity isn't a theory. herd immunity is a scientific fact, just like gravity. any vaccination strategy ALSO relies on herd immunity. it is not a "fringe theory." this article you posted is not only bias garbage, it's fundamentally wrong. it cites tom friedman (google him and see how upstanding a citizen he is, by the way) and his completely ridiculous calculations that assume that there is ZERO pre-existing immunity in the population: the exact same modeling assumption that lead the IHME, imperial college, and other alarmist models to be SO WRONG. it also cites mask modeling studies that assume masks are useful to say...masks are useful. GEE, I CAN'T BELIEVE THE FINDINGS!!! (by the way, IHME predicted at the end of september over 400,000 deaths by the end of the year, then revised it down to 360k by the end of the year just two weeks later. their current prediction is 385k by february 1. they literally do nothing but get predicitons wrong.
the scientists behind the great barrington declaration are three supremely credentialed scientists, two of which have politics that are left-of-center. sunetra gupta is literally one of the premiere voices in virology and immunology.