Pandemic Madness: The Government Only Wants to Help

Pandemic Madness: The Government Only Wants to Help

Opinion by Dr. Rima
Rima E Laibow, MD, Medical Director, Natural Solutions Foundation October 23, 2020

I live in Tucson’s Ward 6, where the University of Arizona is located. My local City Councilman, Steve Kozachik, who seems to be a genuinely nice guy, as far as I can tell, wants to protect us out of our liberties by forcing, FORCING, all U of Arizona students and faculty to be tested for COVID-19 before they leave for Thanksgiving break WHETHER THEY TAKE ARE IN PERSON OR VIRTUAL MEMBERS OF THE UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY. 

Sadly, the City Council adopted his horrific proposal 6-0.

Force? Virtual? Using tests that are scientifically meaningless?
Hey, Steve, nice guy doesn’t cut it. You are willing, eager, to take away freedoms on the basis of junk science. And it’s not acceptable. 

To tell you the truth, if you were willing and eager to take away freedoms on the basis of good science, that would not be acceptable, either.

My local government only wants to help, no doubt. But the following is so misguided and egregious that I do not even know where to begin.

We all need to think about what our local governments are doing during what is becoming an ever more panic-driven Pandemic Madness, even as the virus attenuates, the symptomatic infection rate reduces and community immunity, slowed by the lock-down, begins to become effective.

The Councilperson who wrote this Constituent Release is my Ward representative in city government, and is basically a nice liberal guy.

But when I previously wrote a long letter to him disputing his desire to make masking totally mandatory everywhere for everything, he never even afforded me the courtesy of a reply.

Now he is taking this insane position. And the City Council thinks it’s a great idea.

What shall we do about it? Clearly, in addition to pressuring our national “decision makers” we have to deal with our local ones as well.

What are you doing about making your local officials understand that the time for panic, if there ever was such a time, is long gone?

This infodemic must be countered, over and over and over by those of us who understand rational thought and facts. Speak up, attend meetings, refuse to bow to tyranny. Or we will never stand up again.

Let them know what you think:  https://tinyurl.com/maskexemption

________________________________________

Contact:
Steve Kozachik
Council Member, Ward 6

Date: October 18, 2020

University of Arizona COVID-19 Testing

During our most recent Mayor and City Council study session, I requested that we adopt a Resolution calling on the University of Arizona to mandate COVID-19 testing as a condition of attending the UA, either through in-person classes, or virtually. The motion was adopted on a 6-0 vote.

Since that meeting representatives of the Pima County Health Department have expressed support for the idea, with the caveat that implementation will take a coordinated effort. I agree. Putting into place the protocols for testing and verifying COVID-19 tests for more than 30,000 people will take focused work, involving inter-jurisdictional input. Nobody disagrees with the goal. The challenge is in how the policy is put into effect.

While it would be my preference that mandatory testing is required of all UA students prior to leaving on Thanksgiving break, I recognize the time remaining before the holiday is short. Let’s begin work on the mandatory testing policy together now, and implement it as soon as the details can be developed. At the very least however I believe all students should be required to test negative prior to returning to Tucson and being readmitted to classes in January.

All UA students must be required by the UA to submit a negative diagnostic PCR COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours of the resumption of classes, whether in-person or virtually, in January. All responsible medical experts affirm this virus is highly contagious and potentially deadly. By working in partnership with the UA and Pima County Health, the Mayor and City Council are protecting the families and vulnerable residents who live in Tucson.

Here is my response:

Dear Steve,

Thanks for caring so deeply about the well-being of our community.  We differ strongly on what the best way to do that is, however.  From my point of view as a physician and as someone who has looked carefully at the reality of death rates vs. test rates (we clearly have a testdemic, not a pandemic), the quality of test results(so poor as to be literally meaningless) and the actual science upon which masking to control viral disease transmission rests (none, actually). I am writing for the second time to urge you to curtail your eagerness to undermine our personal and collective liberty and look at what you are setting in motion.

I wrote a long, detailed and citation-rich letter to you when you first proposed mandatory masking since there is no real science to show that masks reduce the spread of viral disease and a great deal to show that they do not. Further, there is also strong science showing the actual harm to people who wear masks and the absurd and dangerous proposition of children wearing masks.

You did not favor me with the kindness of any sort of acknowledgement of that communication.

Now, you have proposed a shattering of personal autonomy and liberty by demanding inaccurate forced testing of both in-person and -astonishingly – virtual members of the University of Arizona community.

I cannot even begin to fathom what might cause you to hold this to be reasonable, legal or useful.  The tests are not only intrusive (what does happen to all that DNA data, by the way) but shockingly inaccurate since they are conducted with a replication rate (45) that far exceeds the upper limits of accuracy of the PCR technology (26 or below) for a HYPOTHESIZED protein fragment, as indicated by the technical report of the CDC noted in their technical bulletin on the subject.

Even if it were a decent diagnostic tool with reasonable false positive and false negative results (which is most assuredly not the case), the shocking, cavalier and irrational move to force testing on even virtual students is an affront to every liberty-loving person and an assault on the right of each person touched by the edict you have been instrumental in foisting upon the people of your Ward and beyond.

This is not representative democracy, Steve, it is Medical Tyranny.

Shame on you.

Yours in health and freedom,

Dr. Rima
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation