Citizens are divided over the government’s COVID-19 response. Many have lost all trust in their elected representatives and are frustrated by the lack of transparency from public health units who routinely refuse to respond to written requests for peer-reviewed data pertaining to public health orders and vaccinations. Citizens are regularly presented with moving goalposts to end the pandemic, dissenting experts are censored, public health violations committed by officials go unpunished while average citizens are heavily penalized, and vaccine segregation is openly endorsed. Regardless of one’s political leanings, ideology, or creed, it is in the best interest of all citizens to rebuild trust in our legislative bodies and public health units. While the COVID-19 virus has brought harm, division and anger is spreading across the nation at an alarming rate. Officials would be wise to take the following immediate steps to rebuild public trust and unity.
9 Ways to Restore Unity and Trust
1/ Stop censoring medical researchers who question the government narrative. Throughout the history of medical science, humans have benefitted from debate, alternative theories, open disagreement, and academic freedom on a variety of topics. The censorship of trained medical professionals who represent a different viewpoint only breeds distrust and robs citizens of the potential for future life-saving treatments.
2/ Require pharmaceutical companies to take full liability for vaccines. The willingness of officials to openly endorse medical products without requiring for-profit manufacturers to take full liability contributes to vaccine hesitancy and suspicion of Big Pharma. If officials are truly convinced that COVID-19 vaccines are safe, there is no justification to protect manufacturers from financial accountability.
3/ Suspend all coercive vaccination campaigns and promote informed consent. The propaganda tactics employed by officials, including bribing children with ice cream cones or dressing health professionals up as superheroes in order to attract children to vaccination centres, is unprofessional and clownish. Citizens would benefit from the publication of real data, and peer-reviewed research from persons without political liability, in order to make informed vaccination choices. This is in keeping with medical ethics, including the principle of informed consent.
4/ Charge officials who have violated public health orders or, in fairness, drop charges against citizens who have been charged for non-compliance. How can officials expect thoughtful citizens to trust their elected officials when so many citizens have been charged for public health violations while numerous politicians have broken public health mandates with immunity? For example it is a matter of public record that several elected officials and police chiefs have attended large outdoor functions during lockdowns, while other citizens have been charged for attending church, protests, or participating in diabetes fundraisers. This is blatantly unfair and needs to be remedied immediately.
5/ Officials should relinquish all Emergency Powers and allow for open debate in our legislative assemblies on any public health policy that suspends constitutional rights. After twenty months of interrupted legislative processes, there is no justifiable reason for officials to retain Emergency Powers, other than to shield vaccine manufacturers from liability and consolidate power exclusively in the executive branch of government. These abuses of power are dangerous and belittle the legislative system bestowed upon us by our forebears.
6/ Stop dividing the citizenry through vaccine passports and dehumanizing rhetoric. When elected officials refer to vaccine-hesitant citizens as “anti-vaxxers” (not people), and “conspiracy theorists” (not people), and further permit people to be fired from their jobs for refusing to show vaccination papers, they not only fail to represent the people who elected them, but fuel anger and civil disobedience. Protestors and other dissenting voices are real people who pay taxes and deserve to be heard and represented in government decisions.
7/ Provide citizens with peer-reviewed scientific data for all public health orders. The failure of public health units to offer peer-reviewed research for all public health protocols is irresponsible. Even something as simple as requesting peer-reviewed research on the efficacy of cloth masks is met with resistance from local health units, who routinely inspect and enforce mask regulations. Moving forward, every citizen deserves to know that all mandated health protocols are grounded in real science.
8/ Publish all known side-effects for vaccines and other COVID-19 health orders. As is the case with other televised pharmaceutical advertisements, COVID-19 vaccines should never be promoted without a clear declaration of all known side effects. This will allow informed citizens to weigh the risks and rewards of vaccines. The unwillingness of health units to openly publish adverse reactions to vaccinations only serves to drive hesitant people away from potentially life-saving medical treatment, and undermines trust in medicine.
9/ Publish mortality rates for all diseases, including deaths resulting from lockdowns and delayed surgeries. The singular focus on COVID-19 deaths is bizarre, and the failure to disclose collateral damages caused by lockdowns, vaccinations, and job losses is intellectually dishonest and dangerous to public health. The daily publication of COVID case numbers and fatalities to the exclusion of all other fatalities and diseases exacerbates fear and fails to acknowledge other health risks, some of which are a result of public health mandates (i.e. suicides, overdoses, mental health issues, etc.).
Should our elected representatives and public health officials continue to conceal data, coerce people into vaccination, divide citizens by vaccination status, permit officials to violate public health orders, censor expert opinion, and refuse to take liability for medical procedures, public trust in our system of governance and medical system will only continue to erode.
It is time to reunify our people around the principles of fairness, transparency, public debate, bodily autonomy, and freedom of choice.
