By Guy Page
On Aug. 25, both Gov. Phil Scott and Health Commissioner Mark Levine said they were open but not committed to mandatory vaccination for Covid-19. They took a wait-and-see approach. Would the vaccine be safe? Effective? As Gov. Scott said: “details do matter.”
Since then, neither official has spoken publicly about making the Covid-19 vaccination mandatory. A Health Department spokesperson said Wednesday, “there has been no discussion of making COVID-19 vaccines mandatory by the state.” At this Friday’s press conference, Vermont Daily plans to ask them for an update on any consideration mandatory vaccination.
The following developments of possible relevance to their eventual decision have taken place since August 25:
#1 – New vaccines effective, Levine says. The three vaccines scheduled to reach the market soon are believed to be highly effective, Levine said at yesterday’s press conference.
#2 – Vermont Health Dept. plan doesn’t explicitly ensure voluntary vaccination – unlike NY’s plan. Levine issued a Covid-19 vaccine release plan October 21. It makes no mention of mandatory vaccination – one way or the other. Unaddressed, the option is left open. By contrast, the lead bullet point on an Oct. 18 New York State release plan declares the plan is “Intended to Ensure a Safe & Effective COVID-19 Vaccine Is Administered to All New York Residents Who Want One.”
Perhaps in response to the NY plan, the New York Bar Association has recommended mandatory Covid-19 vaccination. The Vermont Bar Administration has remained silent. However, Vermont gubernatorial candidate and lawyer John Klar earlier denounced the NY bar proposal, saying the disease’s relatively benign footprint (compared to, say, Ebola) doesn’t reach the constitutional threshhold empowering the executive branch to force vaccination.
#3 – No change in state law on exceptions to compulsory vaccination for children. On August 25, the Legislature was still in session and could have theoretically acted on H238 to remove the religious exemption for parents to not immunize pre-school children for standard immunizations. However, H.238 died when the session ended.
August 25 comments on mandatory vaccination – In their August 25, 2020 press conference, both Gov. Phil Scott and Health Commissioner Mark Levine said their endorsement of Covid-19 mandatory vaccination for would depend on likely outcomes, such as safety and effectiveness.
On August 25, Vermont Daily asked: “The Virginia Commissioner of Health last week said when a Covid vaccine becomes available, he plans to make vaccination mandatory. Even though his Governor’s office has now walked that comment back a bit, Commissioner Levine, can you tell us if you will recommend mandatory vaccination, and if so why? Governor, you’ve said you lean heavily on the Commissioner’s recommendations, what are your thoughts about making Covid-19 vaccination mandatory?”
In response, Gov. Scott exercised his gubernatorial prerogative to answer first. “If we could magically go back about six months, and I could tell you we have a safe and effective vaccine to prevent the destruction of the world economy and 180,000 deaths [nationwide], I would bet that most people would say, ‘give me some of that,’” Scott said. “So from my standpoint, I lean heavily on trying to make sure that if there is [a safe, effective vaccine] that we would do so. But details do matter. There are some exceptions that would have to be made, no doubt, but the more people that take the vaccine, the better.”
When asked to characterize his answer as supporting mandatory vaccination but with exceptions, Gov. Scott demurred: “I can’t say I would want to make something mandatory” without knowing about the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness. But he repeated, “this is about our livelihood, about our loss of life.” He again cited, with emphasis, the 32,000 New Yorkers and 180,000 Americans dead from Covid-19.
Commissioner Levine answered: “I do know the commissioner from Virginia, and I have a lot of respect for him.” Covid-19 vaccine research “progress has been at an astounding pace. The prime consideration, if we were to make something mandatory, is what the outcomes would be like,” for example, “how many deaths that could be prevented. And we already know how contagious it is, and how much care we have to take to prevent it.”
Levine said he would want to know about a vaccine’s “safety profile…..I can tolerate any vaccine giving some discomfort at an injection site, or causing a low grade fever.” More serious side effects “usually occur very rarely,” but “you want to have a handle on that.” And the trials must have enough people enrolled, he said.
The health commissioner added, “I’m with the governor, this is a serious enough illness, and not just because it is impacting the economy and our ability to do everything the way we used to do it,” but because lives are at stake.
“I can’t give you a definitive answer just yet,” Levine concluded. “But stay tuned.”
Read more of Guy Page’s reports. Vermont Daily is sponsored by True North Media.
Below is a link that discusses deaths in the united states…
https://andmagazine.com/talk/2020/11/28/how-many-people-are-really-dying-in-this-pandemic/
Apparently the covid deaths have miraculously cured people from dropping dead of heart disease, diabetes and a host of other illnesses.
To our Governors and medical teams credit, perhaps the sole reason Vermont has been so low in deaths from Covid, is because we are one of the few states recording deaths properly.
Did they forget to tell you across the united states they changed how the cause of death reporting was changed? Convenient huh? It’s no joke, motorcycle crash, have covid, cause of death- covid…
There are enough ppl here in VT refusing to make a sizable class-action.
Howie Carr did a poll question of day a little while ago.
“Will you take this vaccine?”
Only 3% said Yes.
I remember dealing with this topic when I had my kids, precisely when Jenny McCarthy was screaming from the rooftops about vaccines causing autism.
I did a lot of reading about vaccines and they are not good. The group against them, these Anti-Vaxers, this is a LARGE Group of people! These people have been growing in numbers for decades now. This was a huge thing 15 years ago and it’s only grown from there.
The old vaccines that have been around forever, like we got, those are one thing. But these newer ones are not good and many kids and people have a lot of trouble from them.
My holistic healthcare practitioner tells us that this is what Gulf War Syndrome is about, all the vaccines they gave them.
If they forced these vaccines on us, people would start shooting, I have no doubt.
Meanwhile, over at Seven Days, one gentleman posted a letter to the editor this week advocating for “vaccine certificates” being required before we are allowed to live our lives again. It’s bad enough that we hear this stuff from some people in high places, but it’s nauseating that fellow citizens will also be pushing for it. They can’t see the forest for the trees, it seems. They certainly don’t know their history.
https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/letters-to-the-editor-11-25-20/Content?oid=31734954
You hear people say “It’s the dumb people that are going to get us all killed”
You see a guy saying that and you realize how true that statement is.
To force the vaccine on anyone is to declare the vaccine’s ineffectiveness. After all, refusing to take the vaccine infringes on the freedom and liberty only of those choosing not to take it.
However, if the vaccine is effective, and its availability is limited only to the group of people deemed to be ‘vulnerable’ or ‘essential’ by those providing it, the provider will be deemed to have infringed on the freedom and liberty of those deemed not ‘vulnerable’ or ‘essential’.
Why do we need a vaccine for something that has a 99.8% Recovery Rate?
And yet they only claim 95% effectiveness, pretty safe bet huh?
The thing is Neil, we know so much about who is getting this.
The average age of the people that die of it is 81.
Less than 1% of the people with it die. So there are gazillions of people that got it and recovered!
We have a great deal of herd immunity already..
No one I know ever wore a mask or did a darn thing differently and no one knows any sick people, so clearly this is not as contagious as what they are telling people.
IF you get this, how it goes when you do get it, WE have a lot of control over all of this.. take care of yourself and you mostly likely won’t even get it and if you do, you will march through it like any other flu you’ve had.
People have an irrational fear of this.
Wait till the crime wave starts because they wiped out our economy..
You think you are scared of the flu- wait till you see what living among poor desperate people with nothing to lose is all about.
And on top of that the percentage of fatalities are not comparing apples to apples. They assume massive numbers of people get the regular flu, only the very ill vp get tested, this is how it has such a low,fatality rate.
They do not assume millions and millions have already had cOvid,,, and they compare tested vs. deaths, they’ve been doing this from the beginning, which is why in the first few days was shouting,, it’s a trap, beware.
Noe they will combine two flu seasons woth of deaths, and miraculously it seems cOvid is a cure for heart disease, diabetes and a mirade of other deaths because they are all dropping drastically.
The whole thing is rigged.
New Release for immediate distribution:
Governor Scott installs mandatory curfew of 10pm across the state!
People from Duxbury were found scratching their heads, “We go to bed at 9pm, do we have to stay up that late?”
Waitsfield selectboard questioned the call, ” Our town closes at 9:15, all lights are out, how does this affect us?”
Farmers across the state said, “I’m not going to do it, I’m not staying up that late!”
Here are some other covid ideas…..and memes….
https://www.infowars.com/posts/the-best-thanksgiving-canceled-memes/
I’ll claim vt assisted suicide, not doing it. If it’s so awesome and effective those who want it can do it, wouldn’t that be science? These people march well, where is that training video and simmer camp “how to be a new world order pimp?”
Well now we know why the legislature couldn’t get the votes to pass a resolution apologizing for the VT eugenics law. They want to leave the door open to require this.
“Any preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic medical intervention is only to be carried out with the prior, free and informed consent of the person concerned, based on adequate information. The consent should, where appropriate, be express and may be withdrawn by the person concerned at any time and for any reason without disadvantage or prejudice.”
Article 6, Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights
http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=31058&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
The fundamental equation is very simple: it may be an evil for an individual to refuse a medical treatment, but the historical evidence is abundant that this evil is far outweighed by the evil of forced medical treatment. The example of forced sterilization in the US is one of many examples of this evil; the Nazi atrocities are another, and yes, these atrocities were very much based on an eugenics movement in the US and other countries which determined that we could, and should, have medical control over others.
It’s a slippery slope when mandating treatments “for the greater good,” and it’s difficult to find any difference between medical tyranny and political tyranny, except for the justification for oppression.
In 1927, in Buck v. Bell, the US Supreme Court disregarded all concerns for oppressive measures used to enforce public health ordinances (as expressed, for example, in the 1905 Jacobson decision) in its fervor to act “for the greater good,” and it endorsed forced sterilization. The greater good should be that we are free actors able to decide for ourselves which medications we wish to take.
Practically speaking, a safe and effective Covid vaccine will be chosen by a significant number of people, without coercion. Those who might protest that refusers are hurting everyone else have forgotten the lessons of the past.
Only voluntary never mandatory! I hope Scott follows the lead of Governors Desantis and Abbott… They say no mandatory vax in their states!
No way Scott will follow other republican governors, because he aligns himself with prog-democrats. Immunization certificates will come to Vermont, maybe faster than anywhere else. We made the national news over the Thanksgiving holiday debacle of “teachers asking our children to snitch on their families” This state is cooked, Scott is not working for Vermonters.
To the health commissioner, the illness is not responsible for the economy, the asinine mandates are. Nobody mentioned the side effects of these vaccines.
I will Not Comply,I will Not be vaccinated,I prefer to die on my feet than live on my knees serving Tyrants.
My body, my choice. No thanks.
The conundrum continues. It’s curious that the current administration uses this very logic to justify H. 57 but won’t allow you the same liberty and freedom.
Here’s my “definitive answer” to a potential mandatory vaccine: I’m not taking it, regardless of the penalty.
Our health commissioner and governor seem out of touch with certain facts about the forthcoming vaccines:
They use mRNA technology, otherwise known as “germ line editing,” which is a form of genetic engineering. It’s never been used on human beings. I would hope those who pushed for a GMO food labeling bill would push back against a GMO vaccine.
The “90% effective” claims were issued by press release without peer-reviewed data. Maybe that’s coming, but considering the money at stake it seems the vax makers will do anything to finish first.
Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines were trialed only to minimize symptoms, not to stop the virus. Tal Zaks, chief medical officer at Moderna, said “Our trial will not demonstrate prevention of transmission, because in order to do that you have to swab people twice a week for very long periods, and that becomes operationally untenable.” If a vaccine won’t stop transmission, then it’s not a vaccine, it’s a therapeutic.
Previous efforts to make a vaccine for coronaviruses such as SARS and MERS failed in part because they produced Antibody-Dependent Enchancement (ADE) in test subjects, leading to greater pathology when later challenged with the wild virus. I don’t hear our commissioner addressing this potential pitfall.
The rush for a vaccine for a virus with a 99.7% recovery rate has left many scratching their heads. Even Dr. Michael Yeadon, former VP of Pfizer, said in a letter to the UK health minister, “I have read the consultation document. I’ve rarely been as shocked and upset. All vaccines against the SARS-COV-2 virus are by definition novel. No candidate vaccine has been in development for more than a few months. If any such vaccine is approved for use under any circumstances that are not EXPLICITLY experimental, I believe that recipients are being misled to a criminal extent.”
So there you have it. Very shaky ground, though our governor and commissioner seem blind to it. For everyone’s sake, they best look before they leap on this.