A Heart-Breaking Story

The Harms of COVID-19 Policies are Unacknowledged by Many

Many people have been indoctrinated to hate and/or disregard those who made evidence-based decisions to not comply with COVID-19 inoculations or who recognized that masking asymptomatic (i.e., historically called ‘healthy’) people made no sense. They somehow think that we got what we deserved because we didn’t care about protecting the lives of those impacted by severe COVID-19. This couldn’t be further from the truth. As an expert I and many of my local, national and international colleagues (and history itself) can tell you that there were much better ways to manage the declared pandemic (like following the pandemic preparedness plans that we discarded across the nation within the first two weeks; read them and see what rational planning in the absence of a crisis came up with - it looks nothing like how our leaders reacted; see Lt. Col. Dave Redman’s story). The strategies that we had designed ahead of time would have prevented many of the deaths that occurred. Frankly, our public health and government officials and way too many physicians failed us miserably. I am going to be bluntly honest here: they caused many more Canadians to die than was necessary. So stop vilifying those of us who trusted our prior planning and recognized something was amiss.

Now, for reconciliation to be able to occur between a highly polarized population, there must be acknowledgement of the harms inflicted upon the minority that suffered irrational segregation. With this in mind, I was heart-broken to read a letter written by a colleague of mine. I would like to share it with you because it tells a story that the mainstream media and many other people like to ignore. Sadly, it is a story that will resonate with too many Canadians who were harmed, not by COVID-19, but by the inappropriate response to it. Continued ignorance by those who became enamoured with a single narrative will blunt the healing process. With their permission, here is my colleague’s story…

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To: Charlotte Yates [President of the University of Guelph]

Dear Dr Yates,

I just wanted to send you a quick note and tell you about my experience as a manager with the Lang School of Business over the last 8 months.

Before my employment at Lang, I was a MSc student of UofG. I was so incredibly proud to call myself an alumni and employee when I was hired at the John F Wood Centre in August of 2021; shortly after I got married.

My husband and I were so excited to start our new life together. 

In October, my husband and I were pre-approved for our first ever home together, so we bought our first home! A short 2 months later, we lost the pre approval of our mortgage and at the same time, we were forced out of the beautiful home we were in in South end Guelph. We lost our home. 

We lost our home because of UofG's vaccination policy.

I wanted to share this with you because I'm disheartened by the lack of acknowledgement of the damages these policies have done to students and staff. UofG is now letting non vaccinated people back to work/study however there is no acknowledgement that these policies were damaging. I lost a beautiful home because of them. I was also reprimanded by HR for walking outside of my building to pick up a box from my colleague one day to help her. I was made to feel like a pest on my own office grounds. A place that used to embrace me with open arms.

I have sent you many emails in the latter part of 2021 with no acknowledgement of any kind. I was distraught and depressed with the situation that was happening and I felt like no one cared and still do. An academic institution should be built on a foundation of trust, healthy debate, TRUE anti-discrimination, rigorous research, amongst many others. The lack of acknowledgement of the ongoing debate on the efficacy of the vaccinations AND the lack of acknowledgement of the side effects is appalling. Furthermore, natural immunity was completely ignored and still is. I pose no threat to my colleagues. I had an office of my own, by myself. I taught online. I have natural immunity. I could have continued working this semester and I could have also kept my home. The policy was not grounded on scientific principles. 

I am simply writing this because I want you to know that the policy ruined lives. It uprooted lives. It delayed life plans. It's not a small ordeal. It also forced other people into making medical choices they did not want to make just to keep themselves and/or children fed. 

A hospital recently rescinded their vaccination policy for their employees; paid back their employees who were on forced leaves and deleted any HR records relating to the discriminatory vaccination/masking policies.  

Because of the length of my unpaid leave (the fact that it was indefinite), we lost our mortgage and it's too late to get it back. Coming back to work in May is no longer an option. It's too late. I no longer have a home in Guelph to live in even if I wanted to work at UofG. 

I just wanted to share my story with you in hopes that you would acknowledge the damage this caused to employees and students that may be coming back in May. There absolutely should be compensation and acknowledgement of the damage (emotional, financial, loss of time, etc) done to them.

I do hope to hear from you in some form and I do hope we learn from this and we do not let history repeat itself.

K.E.

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