Please answer

Perry Lang, CEO
Woodstock Hospital

Dear Mr. Lang,

I am writing this letter to publicly express my concerns regarding Covid-19 vaccine¹ policies you introduced to Woodstock Hospital, and ask some questions that I find deeply troubling, and that I do not believe have ever been given a full, intelligent and articulated answer.

Being vaccinated is not evidence that one is not infectious! It seemed to be the case with Delta variant (see Appendix 1), and - to a much greater extent - with Omicron. And yet, you have decided to divide people based on Covid vaccine status.

If it was known that the vaccine does not prevent infection, there is little difference in transmission between vaccinated and unvaccinated, and vaccinated hospital staff can become infected with Covid and transmit the virus to patients and coworkers:

What purpose does your mandate actually serve? How do you justify mandating a vaccine that doesn’t stop the spread of Covid, but might be causing potentially serious side effects?
What evidence has your decision been based on?
What rationale have you used to decide that ONLY Covid-19 injection status is considered to be a criterion of safety for staff and visitors, and not a negative test or natural immunity?
Have you considered that, by focusing only on one (and faulty) metric (injection status) you might be giving the community a false sense of safety, and letting people expose themselves and their loved ones to much more risk than they were aware of? Have they been informed of that risk?

I hope you could put some light on your decision process, because, so far, based on available information regarding virus transmission, there doesn’t seem to be adequate logic or science behind your decision.

The underlying argument (that your mandate would somehow make the hospital a safer place) seems to be based on three premises:

that being not vaccinated is a sufficient condition of a “disaster” (Covid) waiting to happen,
that mandating vaccination is going to prevent this disaster,
that coercing people into vaccination will not result in a harm of a different kind.

The problem is that none of these conditions is true.²

In fact, using that logic, one might argue that all staff not vaccinated against seasonal flu are infected at all times, and are carrying and spreading the disease. So, if you were to be consistent - it would be reasonable to mandate flu vaccines, assume they are effective in preventing transmission and terminate unvaccinated staff. Are there any plans to implement such a policy?

To conclude:

It seems to me that, contrary to compelling evidence (Appendix 1), we (as a community) and you (as community leader) decided to live in some sort of "make-believe" reality, where health care problems can be easily solved by "disappearing" the unvaccinated. What might even be a justifiable position (like believing in Santa) if not the fact that it is causing a lot of collateral damage and real harm to many people.
I also find it very disappointing that you, and other community leaders, seem to believe that the problem was the enforcement (hence coercion), and not the fact that your mandate seems to contradict common scientific knowledge, is massively unethical, discriminatory, possibly illegal and a huge violation of the Nuremberg code and basic civil liberties.
Some people might wonder why your decision seems to be surprisingly divorced from facts, the known literature and practical experience (confirming that the vaccinated get and spread Covid-19). My hope is, that by providing a comprehensive answer to my questions, you could put these claims to rest.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Best Regards,

Concerned Citizen

NOTES:

(1) The common (as per CDC) definition of a “vaccine” and “vaccination” does not anymore reflect what the majority of people understand by the term. After the definition has been changed (Sept 2021), vaccination means now: "The act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce protection from a specific disease", as compared to previous definition (2015-2021): "The act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease" and to pre-2015 one: "Injection of a killed or weakened infectious organism in order to prevent the disease". If the older (pre-2021) definition was used, the discussed products would not be called "vaccines" at all.

(2) Premise 1: One can be unvaccinated and healthy (can't spread the virus without having a virus. Being unvaccinated does not mean at all that a person is sick or infectious). One can also be unvaccinated, but naturally immune (possibly with much stronger immunity than vaccine induced).

Premise 2: Appendix 1 seems to completely contradict the second premise, that mandating vaccines is going to prevent Covid-19 spread.

Premise 3: It seems undeniable that you have already caused a very real harm (to employees you forced out of the hospital, to their kids and families, but also to a significant number of employees you coerced into a medical procedure against their will) to prevent a hypothetical harm that - as evidence seems to suggest - will not be prevented by your action anyway.

dr. Anthony Fauci, M.D. NIAID Director

When you look at the level of virus in the nasal pharynx of people who are vaccinated who get breakthrough infections, it’s really quite high and equivalent to the level of virus in the nasal pharynx of unvaccinated people who get infected.

So, we know now that vaccinated people who get breakthrough infections can spread the virus to other people

Rochelle P. Walensky CDC Director

Delta infection resulted in similarly high SARS-CoV-2 viral loads in vaccinated and unvaccinated people. High viral loads suggest an increased risk of transmission and raised concern that, unlike with other variants, vaccinated people infected with Delta can transmit the virus.

Rochelle P. Walensky CDC Director

Our vaccines are working exceptionally well," she said. "They continue to work well with delta with regard to severe illness and death, but what they can't do anymore is prevent transmission

dr. Theresa Tam Chief Public Health Officer of Canada

But we also have learnt that the vaccines are not perfect in terms of reducing infections (...) and that vaccinated individuals, although they are at reduced risk of getting infection, could get infected and when they do get infected, they could actually have similar viral load to those who are unvaccinated

Joseph A. Ladapo, MD, PhD State Surgeon General, Florida, US

As we now know, these vaccines are not preventing transmission. They reduce the likelihood of transmission, and even that is sort of questionable, depending on how far out you go, but they are not preventing it

Dr Tony Holohan The Chief Medical Officer, Ireland

In truth they are probably not performing as well as we might have hoped in terms of preventing transmission

It is possible for people who are infected, and who were vaccinated, to be infected and to transmit that infection

Jefferson Jones, MD, MPH, FAAP Medical Officer Epidemiology Task Force, CDC

Vaccines have been quite effective at preventing cases of COVID-19 that led to severe illness and death, but none has proved reliable at blocking transmission of the virus

Recent evidence has also made clear that the immunity provided by vaccines can wane in a matter of months

The result is that even if vaccination were universal, the coronavirus would probably continue to spread

prof. Jay Bhattacharya Professor of Medicine and Health Policy, Stanford University

... the Covid vax does not stop infection. The vax provides a private benefit (protection vs. severe disease), but limited public benefit (protection vs. disease spread)

Dr. Cillian De Gascun Chair of the NPHET Coronavirus Expert Advisory Group,Ireland

Whilst vaccination reduces the risk of Delta infection, fully vaccinated individuals have viral loads similar to unvaccinated & can efficiently transmit infection in household settings, including to fully vaccinated contacts

Dr Colman O'Loughlin President of the Intensive Care Society of Ireland

What doesn't seem to have happened to the same level is reduction in transmission. So we seem to be able to protect people, this vaccine doesn't seem to have the same level of effectiveness in reducing virus transmission into community. So therefore, it is circulating (the virus), much higher than we thought it would be with such a high level of vaccination. A lot of things have changed (since March 2020), but the problem with transmission hasn't changed

Dr Colman O'Loughlin President of the Intensive Care Society of Ireland

Yes, you are able to get the virus into your system, into your upper airway tract and the virus can replicate and it can transmit if you cough or sneeze. And that's becoming more evident" (...) it appears that is the major downside to the vaccination program, that we are not seeing that reduction in transmission we would hope to see

dr. Peter McCullough Internist, cardiologist, epidemiologist, professor at Texas A&M University

The vaccinated are carrying and spreading the virus just as readily as unvaccinated. The vaccines don't stop the virus in the nose and mouth of those who are fully vaccinated.

The vaccinated were equally as infectious as unvaccinated, so the vaccines don't protect the schools or the employers one bit

Dr Aseem Malhotra FRCP NHS Consultant Cardiologist, UK

We now know, it's very clear, that the vaccine does not have any significant effect on preventing transmission.

I had the vaccine … under the belief, which has now been proven FALSE, that I was going to protect patients from getting the virus from me

Dr. Neil Rau Infectious Diseases / Medical Microbiologist, University of Toronto

The problem we have with these vaccines, is that you get a good stopping of transmission for the first 1-3 months after you get the vaccine, and then the immunity starts to wane

Carl Heneghan, MD director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, UK

The evidence is becoming clear, that the viral load of the vaccinated and unvaccinated is very similar, you can still transmit when you are vaccinated