Passover lesson on liberty by Dr. Yoav Yehezkelli
By Dr. Yoav Yehezkelli, a specialist in Internal Medicine and medical management, an expert in emergency and disaster management, co founder of the Israeli epidemic management team, and member of the Israeli Public Emergency Council for the COVID-19 Crisis (PECC).
On the occasion of Passover, the Jewish festival of freedom:
Do you realize that freedom is being taken away from you?
In Israel and around the world over the past two years, governments have taken actions against COVID-19 that have undermined basic rights such as freedom of movement, freedom to make a living, education, and more.
Lockdowns, isolations, school closures, making vaccination and testing even in healthy people a condition for freedom of movement, for employment, for leisure and for study (green pass), surveillance and undermining of privacy, mask mandates—all materialized under the laws and regulations of a state of emergency.
Authorities told citizens that these measures would preserve their health and save lives.
Well, the truth is that there is no substantiated evidence that these measures are effective in reducing COVID-19 morbidity. There are already plenty of data and studies that show that the measures did not affect the spread of the disease.
On the contrary, the harm that these measures have caused to health, to mental wellbeing, to the economy, to livelihood, to education and to civic society is enormous, exceeding the harm due to the virus itself.
It can therefore be said that the public, who complied with these measures as a matter of necessity in order to maintain their health, has been deceived by the authorities.
The public has relinquished basic liberties while subjecting themselves to enormous harm unnecessarily, thus enabling the government to produce a new order under the guise of a pandemic emergency, which in fact has not existed for a long time now.
Would it have occurred to you in 2019 that you would be locked up at home for long days just because you might have been exposed to a sick person? That you would be forced to undergo a medical examination (and pay for it) when you have no symptoms of an illness? That you will receive medical treatment (vaccination) not because you want to but so that you can continue to make a living, study or enter public places? That you will no longer have medical confidentiality? That your children will be forced to wear masks, or else be thrown out of school even though they are healthy?
The right to movement, livelihood, education, breathing and autonomy over the body are more than just civil rights: these are basic human rights.
During the COVID-19 years, medicine has become “infected” with scientific charlatanism, concealment of information, intoxication with power, patronage of commercial interests, and disregard for the foundational values of medicine: the duty to be cautious, evidence-based medicine, patients’ rights, compassion.
The professional echelon encouraged and allowed politicians to use force, to disregard human rights, and lie to the public.
The government conned the public into thinking that the draconian measures were necessary.
Would it have occurred to the physicians that a general lockdown would be called to fight a virus with a low mortality rate that seriously harms almost exclusively elderly persons? That a person will be defined as a “verified” case even though they have no symptoms? That weak studies and biased data will serve as a basis for making fateful decisions for public health? That a medical experiment will be performed on Israeli citizens without informed consent and control? That the FDA and the vaccine manufacturer would hide from me, in my capacity as a physician, the side effects of a new vaccine for an entire year? That children be vaccinated against a disease they are resistant to? And that the medical leadership will stand behind it all?
As a physician, if there is a freedom whose loss saddens me, it is the freedom of professional opinion. The health authorities in Israel and around the world keep silent and label every position that is different from their own, well founded as it may be, as fake news. And at the same time, their officials consistently avoid open and transparent medical discussion.
The story of the pandemic is the story of countries that have neglected public systems for years, most notably the health-care system. When COVID-19 arrived, the authorities came under pressure, lest the pandemic get out of control and the people lay the blame on the leadership. Overnight, democracies adopted the draconian lockdowns imposed by China, a dictatorial state in which human life is worth as much as a clove of garlic.
It soon became clear that these restrictions were ineffective against a respiratory virus characterized by wave-like morbidity. The governments themselves were amazed at the complacency and the immense power that the situation put in their hands—and how convenient for them was the new order, in which they could blame the spread of the virus on citizens who did not obey instructions. This was convenient for the government, convenient to those who have become rich and have gained power from treating the pandemic and for the manufacturers of tests, equipment and vaccines. As time went on, the appetite increased; restrictions continued, and with them grew the need to lie to the public increased, to upgrade the simple virus to the status of smallpox even when the weak variants appeared, and to cultivate the false narrative of lockdowns, isolations, masks and vaccines. Various professional voices were silenced, and the media was mobilized with large sums of money to fuel the fear of the pandemic, in endless propaganda that threw the citizens into a state of post-trauma and helplessness.
Now that you understand the true story of COVID-19, the question arises: How long will you continue to put up with needless harm to your liberty?
Obeying the law in practice is one thing. But to accept irrational measures as destiny without questioning the parade of folly is much worse: because true freedom lies in the mind, this means that you lose freedom.
This generation in the post-World-War-II Western world has grown up into an unprecedented freedom won in a bloody struggle by a previous generation. Liberty should not be taken for granted.
The unwritten contract between the citizen and a democratic government is that the citizen gives up some of their freedoms, and in return the government takes care of their protection.
The duty of trust of a democratic government toward its citizens is to resort to deprivation of liberty with ultimate care and only when there is no other choice.
When abusive emergency regulations are enacted without justification or grounding in reality, then this trust and contract is violated by the government.
For the public, especially the young public who has never experienced oppression, it is comforting to believe that this violation does not concern them. It does very much concern all of us.
And the smoke screens, the deceit: the government is only creating a distraction and throwing sand in your eyes when it works to ensure that you can bring chametz into the hospitals on Passover. This is not true Freedom.
It is time to stand up to demand and act to fully restore essential liberties.
We must demand full transparency and the removal of confidentiality from all minutes of the discussions and the agreement with the vaccine manufacturer.
We must demand state commission of inquiry into the COVID-19 crisis.
We must demand the immediate removal of all emergency regulations and all unnecessary restrictions.
No regime will easily give up so much power. Because power has been obtained by means of deception, the way to restore freedom is by exposing the truth.
Let the government do its job: to truly strengthen exhausted medical teams and the health care system, to facilitate an unrestricted life routine.
Both politicians and professionals must understand that what they have been doing for the past two years are things that must not be done: breach of contract with the citizen, betrayal of public trust. They must be accountable to the people.
May compassion return to our land.
This Passover, may we maintain a social closeness.
May this seder, this Passover meal (seder means order in Hebrew), mark the end of the order that governments have been trying to impose, and the growth of a new civil order.
In every generation, a person must go from slavery to freedom. And the time to do so is now.
In addition to our excellent medical and science teams at PECC, we need you all with us! Every citizen from all walks of life, join us together in the peaceful struggle for the truth.
Join our leading scientists at:
https://pecc-il.org/
https://t.me/peccisrael
https://twitter.com/PECC_eng?s=20&t=Ail48eJcCkV8yC-Pl5mRyg
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