Unpublished Letter to the Editor, Aylmer Express

One of the many unpublished letters to the editor to our local paper the Aylmer Express.  As much as they could claim that none of these opinions are a reflection of their personal beliefs they prefer to leave letters such as these on the cutting room floor.

November 15, 2020

John Hueston & Brent Hueston
Aylmer Express

Dear John and Brent,

Your many letters to the editor last week were full of emotion about the division caused in Aylmer following the recent Freedom Marches.  I believe everyone, on both sides, is saddened by that.

Perhaps your paper could help ease the tension instead of fueling the division with your editorials by publishing this letter explaining the position of many of those pushing back against increasing government COVID measures, including masks and lockdowns.

Your editorial read, “Their beliefs that masks are not necessary defy the beliefs of the majority, of the law, and the elected government.”  Was it intentional that you left out any reference to medical science?  One hundred percent of those I speak with who object to mask mandates do so on medical and scientific grounds which leads to philosophical and/or religious grounds. To claim all medical science supports masking is plainly false. Is your paper willing to truly be objective and allow public discourse on this, possibly with two opposing editorials?

Secondly, most main stream media provide an incomplete (at best) or a skewed perspective on the real risk of COVID-19 to the general public.  Statistics Canada published the all-cause mortality numbers for the first half of 2020.  All-cause mortality includes deaths from all causes, COVID-19 and otherwise.  All-cause mortality for Ontario for Feb – Jul 2019 was 52,650 and for Feb – Jul 2020 was 51,450, a difference of 1,190 fewer.  Official death statistics at the end of Jul 2020 indicated Ontario COVID-19 deaths were in the 3,000 range.  Something doesn’t add up here and many of us are asking questions, something the media used to do.  Even if we use the current official Canadian total of 10,000 COVID-19 deaths (which includes mostly elderly people who died with one or more co-morbidities), the death rate is 0.027%.  As a comparative, the death rate for influenza and pneumonia is 0.13%.  Incomplete reporting is a form of censorship.

Lastly, the questions around the issue of COVID-19 testing are of enormous significance because the increasing numbers of “cases” are driving lockdown measures. Allow for a brief explanation of testing.

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test takes a sample of your cells (nasal swab), makes millions to trillions of copies of the DNA to sufficiently amplify it to find tiny viral fragments that seem to match very minute parts (i.e.<1%) of a “picture” of a whole Sars-Cov-2 virus genome. The binary positive or negative test result gives no indication of how much virus was in the sample, how likely it is to be an active infection, or even if it was COVID-19 or another virus. Ontario amplifies (magnifies) the samples 38-45 times, which incidentally are exponential increases, while many scientists say the number of cycles should be 25. The inventor of the PCR test did not design this test for diagnostic purposes and said so publicly prior to his passing last year.

All of that to say, members of the public should be free to question the veracity of PCR tests, to question the science behind masking, social distancing, and lockdowns and to get answers from our government and health officials.  None are forthcoming, hence the public demonstrations.

Rather than only publish emotional responses to the COVID measures or to public demonstrations, why don’t we raise the level of discussion to talk about science, historical evidence, the pros and cons of public health measures, and how to protect the most vulnerable members of our communities while also protecting lives, livelihoods, businesses and community relationships.

I also call on the leadership in the community to set aside rhetoric and do the difficult task of bringing people together.  There is always a way. As John F Kennedy said, “In a time of domestic crisis, men of goodwill and generosity should be able to unite regardless of party or politics.”  Strong, wise leadership is what will heal division and keep Canada strong. Without it, we will suffer greatly.

Gisele Baribeau

Dorchester, ON

PS:

For your personal listening to get a perspective on why people such as myself are COVID-19 vaccine skeptics, I have attached this short video of an independent and apolitical research scientist, Dr James Lyons-Weiler, speaking at press conference in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, regarding the COVID-19 vaccine.  The organization I represent is for vaccine choice; we advocate for informed choice and voluntary decisions.  We expect everyone, including vaccine advocates, would be in favor of informed choice. Watching this video will get you once step closer to making an informed choice on the pending COVID-19 vaccine.

Here is a link to a House of Commons petition to ensure the safety, efficacy, transparency, accountability and voluntary nature of a COVID vaccine.  Even pro-vaccine advocates should be in favor of this petition

This ppt presentation on the science behind the PCR test will explain in more detail how the test is highly inappropriate for use in COVID-19 diagnostic testing.

In this article, Fauci is cited as saying, “If you get a cycle threshold of 35 or more that the chances of it being replication competent are miniscule. You almost never can culture virus from a 37 threshold cycle. So, I think if someone does come in with a 37…38, even 36, ya gotta say, ya know, it’s just dead nucleotides. Period.”  (Ontario uses cycles from 38 – 45 Journal of Clinical Virology)