Cathy Stein is an associate professor of epidemiology at Case Western Reserve University. (source)
“… While the scientific justification and ethical basis behind these [Covid] mandates was questionable last year, with an additional year of research, mandates are even more controversial. Here I present the latest objections to these mandates.
Mandates are not scientifically justified
Scientific studies, reports by health agencies, and other public data have generally shown that vaccination does not prevent infection, thereby not preventing transmission.
Multiple studies… have shown that viral loads and/or infection rates are similar in vaccinated and vaccinated individuals. This is important because it is generally understood in infectious disease epidemiology that transmission probability is highest in individuals with the highest viral loads…
A recent tweet by Dr. Vinay Prasad illustrates the vaccine’s decreased effectiveness over time, especially in response to specific variants of the virus...
This is consistent with several reports … showing waning effectiveness of the vaccine and high case numbers in population groups with high vaccine coverage.
Moreover, studies… have also shown that protection against future infection is equivalent between vaccinated individuals and individuals who have acquired immunity naturally…
Mandates are unethical
… because these mandates threaten an individual’s education and/or career stability, they are coercive and impose an undue influence. Both of these factors violate informed consent, a keystone of medicine…
Another issue is that forced vaccines violate sincerely held religious beliefs. The Christian perspective on this is described nicely by the Warrenton Declaration, written by a group of pastors.
Last is the issue of risk. While public health professionals, academics, and health care professionals disagree about the degree of risk associated with these vaccines, the fact is that the risk is non-zero…
Even the peer-reviewed scientific literature describes the severe reactions due to the vaccine. A systematic review of the literature summarized adverse reactions to the vaccine, including thrombocytopenia, thrombosis, anaphylaxis, and even death…
[W]hen a global population is exposed to this vaccine, the numbers could still be significant. Another mini-review adds pericarditis, myocarditis, and Guillain-Barré syndrome to this list of adverse reactions.
Mandates don’t even work
… [B]ack in the fall semester, a twitter thread by Dr. Aaron Kheriaty put a spotlight on Cornell University, which shut down its campus due to high COVID-19 case counts. Dr. Kheriaty’s tweet stated that Cornell had a vaccine mandate, ‘purging’ all unvaccinated students. The 3% positivity rate was called ‘significant’ by the university’s president, but none of the cases were severe, and virtually every case occurred in fully vaccinated individuals…
In sum, strict vaccine mandates do not result in zero transmission.”
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