The Lancet publishes article concluding vaccine mandates not justified

By Art Moore(WND NEWS CENTER)The prestigious British medical journal The Lancet has published an article by a University of Colorado infectious disease scientist concluding vaccine mandates should be reconsidered in light of studies finding the vaccines are not stopping transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Carlos Franco-Paredes of the University of Colorado’s Division of Infectious Diseases, wrote that “the impact of vaccination on community transmission of circulating variants of SARS-CoV-2 appeared to be not significantly different from the impact among unvaccinated people.”

“The scientific rationale for mandatory vaccination in the USA relies on the premise that vaccination prevents transmission to others, resulting in a ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated,” he noted. “Yet, the demonstration of COVID-19 breakthrough infections among fully vaccinated health-care workers (HCW) in Israel, who in turn may transmit this infection to their patients, requires a reassessment of compulsory vaccination policies leading to the job dismissal of unvaccinated HCW in the USA.”

Franco-Paredes cited a U.K. study published last October he believes should have an impact on vaccination policies.

It found, as WND reported, that people vaccinated against COVID-19 were as likely to spread the delta variant to contacts in their household as those who had not been vaccinated.

Scientists, including researchers at the Imperial College of London, studied 621 people in the United Kingdom who had mild COVID-19 and found that the peak viral load of the vaccinated was similar to the unvaccinated.

And there are further studies showing the viral load in the upper airways of the lungs is similar in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals.

The Colorado researcher cited an investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of an outbreak of COVID-19 in a Texas prison that found there was no difference in the presence of infectious virus in the nasopharynx of vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals.

And researchers in California, similarly, observed no major differences in viral loads between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals, even in those with proven asymptomatic infection.

“Thus,” Franco-Paredes wrote, “the current evidence suggests that current mandatory vaccination policies might need to be reconsidered, and that vaccination status should not replace mitigation practices such as mask wearing, physical distancing, and contact-tracing investigations, even within highly vaccinated populations.”

This week, in the wake of growing acknowledgment that the shots don’t prevent infection, along with worker shortages and a Supreme Court ruling, Johns Hopkins professor Dr. Marty Makary said it’s time to bring back workers who were fired for not being vaccinated.

And companies and public health officials should apologize, he wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

“Public-health officials ruined many lives by insisting that workers with natural immunity to Covid-19 be fired if they weren’t fully vaccinated. But after two years of accruing data, the superiority of natural immunity over vaccinated immunity is clear,” Makary said.

“It’s time to reinstate those employees with an apology,” Makary wrote.

He said the efficacy of natural immunity against COVID-19 should not be a surprise, as many past studies have shown that infection with other coronaviruses such as SARS and MERS confers lasting immunity.

Makary cited a study published in May 2020 that show COVID-recovered monkeys that were exposed again to the virus didn’t get sick.”Public-health officials have a lot of explaining to do,” he said.

“We know public health officials like Dr. Rochelle Walensky and Dr. Anthony Fauci won’t be doing any apologizing, but maybe there’s a chance large employers will do the right thing.”