AN OPEN letter which made headlines calling for a herd immunity approach to Covid-19 lists a number of apparently fake names among its expert signatories, including ‘Dr Johnny Bananas’ and ‘Professor Cominic Dummings’.

The Great Barrington declaration, which was said to have been signed by more than 15,000 scientists and medical practitioners, including from Oxford University, was found by Sky News to contain numerous false names, as well several homeopaths and therapists.

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Authored by three experts, one of which was Oxford University's Professor Sunetra Gupta, other names listed include a resident at the ‘university of your mum’, ‘Professor Boris Isacompuliveliar’, and another supposed specialist whose name was the first verse of Los del Rio’s 1993 song, Macarena.

Sky News also discovered 18 self-declared homeopaths in the list of expert names and more than 100 therapists whose expertise included massage, hypnotherapy and Mongolian khoomii singing.

The declaration drew widespread attention earlier this week when it called for an easing of lockdown measures, allowing most people to return to normal life while protecting the most vulnerable.

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Individual academics from the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Stanford, Nottingham, Edinburgh, Exeter, Sussex and York are among experts from around the world who have signed the declaration.

However, the declaration’s website allows anyone to add their name to the list if they provide an email address, home city and postcode and name.

Signatories also tell the site whether they are a medical and public health scientist, medical practitioner or member of the general public – of whom almost 160,000 claim to have signed.

It is not clear how many of the names in the declaration’s list of experts are fake, or when they appeared, however many scientists have already criticised its conclusions.