This letter is in response to several letters expressing strong reactions against Covid vaccinations and its implied restrictions.
Wow, with my limited intelligence I cannot understand where the problem is.
I cannot wrap my mind around the fact that we are still in this state of turmoil and hardships.
People say that the vaccination is not safe, that it is not proven. Don’t they understand that vaccine scientist researchers were not starting from scratch when they learned about SARS Covid-2, the virus that causes COVID 19?
There are hundreds of coronaviruses including the common cold.
Amid a global pandemic, time was a luxury the world could not afford. The best brains around the world quickly mobilized to share their data with other scientists, even Western scientists collaborated with the Chinese. Some of these disease scientists were individuals (like Einstein) who were not working for big drug companies. The fastest vaccine ever developed that was safe and accepted by the public was for mumps, and that was 3.5 years. But that was in 1971. Think how far science has come since then.
How long will it take you to accept that the vaccines approved by World Health and Health Canada are safeâ€4 years, 10 years, never?
COVID is a vicious killer that not only attacks the old, the weak, and those with underlying medical conditions. It killed someone I knew, younger than I am, a strong athlete with no medical conditions. And even if you do recover from the hospital or being sick at home, the after effects can be devastating for the rest of your life, perhaps into your old age. We know now that it can permanently affect your sense of smell, and now recently your hearing. There is so much we don’t know yet, including possible harm to your immune system in later years.
In this COVID crisis I wish I was a communist. China has proven its ability to keep the pathogen at bay. It has less than 30 new infections reported per day out of a population of 1.402 billion. It has thus far kept all its infected patients alive for the past six months. It’s clear that China can stamp out the virus, but how long can it hold out against the rest of the world?
I have been asked, “Claude, you’re a teacher, you have an inquisitive mind, do some research, look at both sides of the story, the pros and cons.”
Why should I? Although I took a lot of biology courses, I have no expertise in deciding what is right and what is false information. As you know there are no safe and reliable sites on the internet regarding COVID except the World Health Organization site and the ones on Health Canada, U.S., Germany, France, “¦. and especially the ones on the British College of Doctors site. I have to believe that Health Canada has done the work for me, looked at all the studies and sites and made a logical decision. Why should I believe in some study by some doctors who rig up statistics and want to make a name for themselves? Why should I reinvent the wheel of life?
Goat newspaper letters have indicated that we are losing our medical staff because of the vaccination requirement. The truth is that we are losing a lot more of our medical staff throughout the province, not because of vaccination requirements, but because our medical staff is quitting, choosing another avenue, because of stress. Stress in being overworked and trying to find enough compassion in their hearts to treat patients with COVID who willingly choose not to get vaccinated and possibly end their lives. Last summer the Kamloops hospital lost 25 per cent of their ER staff. A woman died, not COVID-related, after waiting nine hours in an emergency department waiting room. Why? too busy, too wrapped up in treating COVID patients and the very much shortage of staff.
I personally would never want to be treated by a doctor who believes that his knowledge is above disease control immunization specialist doctors.
In conclusion, the main reason that I hear for not being vaccinated is: “It’s my right, it’s my choice, it’s my constitutional freedom.”
Well, I’m sorry to say that your constitutional rights, your freedom STOPS where mine begins. Freedom to live in a world without restrictions, freedom to obtain commodities not curtailed by the supply chain, the right to see my dad who cannot see because he has been rescheduled three times for surgery, the freedom of not having to wear masks, freedom to sing at music festivals, freedom of a full economic recovery like in China, the right of not having my taxes increased because Canada has to pay billions of dollars for economic recovery and to treat COVID patients which was not necessary.
All of this could have been prevented. We had the tools, but ignorance won over.
Claude Germain
Valemount, BC
