Comments for proposed amendments to permanent standard July 2021:

Image

If the mission of any mitigation strategies for Covid-19 is still to limit the overwhelming of hospitals, that has been completely accomplished based on the VDH data in the graph above.  The darkest blue is current hospitalizations for CV-19 and the dotted yellow is surge capacity (not overwhelmed capacity).  As can be seen, we have never been anywhere near capacity nor in danger of overwhelming the hospital beds.  Shown is Northwest region, but all graphs show the same overall trends.  If the mission of any mitigation strategy is something other than preventing hospitals from becoming overwhelmed, then that should be explained by the DOLI board at the outset.

 

Image

The % positivity rates are also as low as they’ve ever been, even before any executive orders were implemented last year, why doesn’t that metric mean anything to DOLI?  

 

Also, we are still referencing PCR tests as the accepted measurement for infection.  However, just detecting virus using this test doesn’t equate to an infection, hospitalization, or death.  It just means the virus was detected.  The CDC spells this out here:

Image

This means just because someone submits to a PCR test and that test, run at higher than recommended cycles, finds traces of virus, that person is deemed to be a positive case.  That person may never be in need of medical care, may never have a symptom, and may never transmit enough virus to cause illness to anyone else, yet they are recorded as a positive case.  That seems like an improper way to measure the presence of a lethal virus in a population.  I’d expect that in VA, with a governor who was trained as a medical doctor, we would require a higher level of verification to declare someone as a positive case.

 

Deaths are also now at incredibly low numbers.  Ultimately that is what is trying to be reduced or prevented from a viral spread, that has happened.  In the same Northwest region, the 7-day average is 3 deaths/day.  That is less than deaths from any number of other daily activities and certainly not worthy of statewide intervention policies.

 

Image

Also, according to VDH data, 11,436 individuals have deaths attributed to CV-19 out of 681,599 reported cases.  That’s a death rate of .0168% or 99.9832% survivability when a positive case is identified (notwithstanding the above issues with positive case identification).  This assumes accuracy of reporting is 100% as well.  Knowing this, we are taking all these mitigation efforts?  Does anyone at DOLI do a risk/benefit analysis with respect to this public data?  If called as a witness in a legislative session, could a DOLI official explain the return on investment to a business for implementing any strategy at all for anything that has less than a 1% chance of happening??

 

With respect to placing demands on the employers of VA to mitigate this virus, the data doesn’t point to this being the proper protocol.  See this chart from VDH data where the vast majority of cases/deaths/hospitalizations are from people near or beyond retirement age (in fact most deaths are from people beyond the average expected life span).  So it really makes no sense to put controls or restrictions on businesses whose employees are in low risk age and demographic groups and contribute nothing to any risk of overwhelmed hospitals or severe disease outbreaks or deaths.

 

Image

 

Also quite curious is VDH website won’t allow me to build a chart just based on death counts alone.  It combines cases and hospitalizations.  So drilling down on the data becomes quite a chore which seems like something that should be fixed.

 

The current round of EUA vaccines on the market are just that, experimental.  There have been zero long-term tests done to know if there are any impacts 2, 5, 10 years from now on recipients.  For this reason alone, employers should not be compelling their teams to do anything with respect to this procedure unless they somehow assume the risk of any adverse events.  In VA, according to VAERS, 44,910 adverse events have been reported.  4,373,518 people in VA are fully vaccinated.  It has been widely estimated that VAERS reporting only captures anywhere from 1-10% of incidents.  Even if not, there’s a 1% chance that a recipient of this experimental intervention will have an adverse reaction and less than a 1% chance of mortality from contracting the virus.  Based on those odds alone, individuals are far better off accepting the low risk of natural disease especially when long-term impacts of the experimental drug on their life is completely unknown.  As an employer, there’s no way to ethically compel or entice employees to accept this risk.

 

There’s also no evidence to show someone who has received the experimental intervention helps anyone but themselves.  A person who receives this treatment, then has exposure to the virus, is now an asymptomatic carrier, and not masking (per these guidelines), making them far more dangerous in the workplace than before (if we assume masks have any impact at all).  If the experimental shot is truly effective, then it shouldn’t matter who wears masks and who doesn’t because the recipients of the shot are supposedly immune.  

 

To illustrate why these programs really will not work, look at the case of the first cruise to take place in North America since all of this has happened.  All crew and passengers were required to be fully vaccinated and have a negative test within 72hrs of departure.  Yet, 2 passengers tested positive for CV-19 while on the cruise.  This could equate to any business you can imagine, anywhere.  Basically, they fully complied and there were still people with the virus.  So what good did any of this do?  Why were they even testing if the vaccine requirements were supposedly enough?  Celebrity Millennium - Two passengers on first fully vaccinated cruise in North America test POSITIVE for Covid (the-sun.com)  

 

Are workers given fully informed consent when they are taking this shot?  Do they know the risks as outlined by the FDA?

Image

 

Does DOLI plan to publish these risks as part of the standard when discussing vaccinated employees versus non-vaccinated employees?

 

How can people who have had a natural interaction with the virus and survived be discounted as being any different from someone who has received the experimental shot?  Humans have developed lifelong or nearly lifelong immunity or resistance to viruses since we have existed.  Are we now ignoring millions of years of development as a species because some new virus showed up in 2020?  Can DOLI refute this?  This article spells it out quite well: Good news: Mild COVID-19 induces lasting antibody protection – Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis (wustl.edu)

 

Should people who have recovered from COVID take a vaccine? (trialsitenews.com)

 

Many more articles and studies like that can be found quite easily.  

 

As of the date of implementation of the ETS (now EPS) in VA, there were approximately 3,200 reported deaths.  VA now stands at approximately 11,400 deaths meaning that since implementation of these mitigation strategies and other statewide mandates, deaths have tripled.  Also during this time the experimental vaccines were introduced and widely implemented.  Can DOLI or anyone at VDH explain this trend sufficiently to make us think that continuing these policies is in any way a net positive for the workers and employers and citizens of VA?

 

There are treatments available.  They have worked and are working worldwide and in the US where brave doctors have risked their careers to save lives while being suppressed by local and state authorities and definitely censored when trying to share best practices with others in their profession on the front lines.  Anyone interested can find these credible testimonies on a variety of platforms and should be appalled and the silencing of these experts.  Dr Pierre Kory, Dr Brett Weinstein, Dr Richard Bartlett, Dr Vladimir Zelenko to name a few that should be looked at.  Knowing this, the EUA should have never been allowed to move forward, that alone should give pause to officials here in VA not wanting future lawsuits for our state to have to defend using taxpayer dollars.  While this is not the role of DOLI, it is something that should be understood and investigated because there will be legal battles coming and this discussion will emerge as part of those cases.

 

In summary, while safety of the workforce appears to be the underlying motivator by DOLI, data suggests safety has not and will not be improved by any measures implemented and enforced thus far.  Data also suggests that the most vulnerable population to this particular virus is largely not in the workforce.  Asking employers to now get into the business of openly discriminating against people who choose or choose not to have an experimental drug injected into their body is really a frightening prospect after a year in which we’ve been asked to enforce state rules on our own with no training or guidance, become nurses and doctors in assessing an employee’s health, taking temperatures or daily medical surveys and also trying to remain open in the face of an economic downturn caused largely by government intervention.

 

DOLI has not had proper public testimony from expert witnesses on any of the topics spelled out in the standard.  Myriad states in the USA have done little to no intervention and had similar or better outcomes with no negative impact on their economies or business freedoms, and those states have recovered faster and are seeing an influx of residents and businesses.  Yet DOLI and VA ignore all of this and just keep making policy.  

 

There are things that are not known.  We really do not know if face coverings do any good or not.  We really do not know if social distancing does any good or not.  We really do not know if constant sanitizing does any good or not.  We really do not know if asymptomatic spread is real or not.  We really do not know if assuming everyone has a virus is a good idea or not.  We really do not know if natural immunity is as effective as that obtained by the various experimental drugs available.  We really do not know if there are long term effects of these drugs.  We really do not know if there have been outbreaks prevented by the measures set out in this standard since last fall.  We really do not know far too many things to implement any policy ethically, or morally here in the commonwealth.  Given the above, I am opposed to the continuation of this standard or any regulation not supported by validated data and public, expert testimony and on the record votes by elected officials.