Straight Talk From Steve

Earlier this year I co-signed LB 643, a bill introduced by Sen. Ben Hansen of Blair to protect the rights of citizens and parents to choose for themselves whether or not to get vaccinated in the event that the government, a school or a business tries to impose a mandatory inoculation. Although the bill has failed to advance out of the HHS committee, I continue to believe that it is a fundamental breech of our individual liberty to impose a mandatory vaccination upon the American public. Yet, this is exactly what is now trending throughout our American society, even though there are good reasons not to get vaccinated.

Last week President Joe Biden announced sweeping changes to his COVID-19 policy and the new Delta variant. All federal workers are now being required to sign forms attesting to their having been vaccinated against the coronavirus or else comply with new mask-wearing guidelines, despite the fact that cloth masks have been repeatedly shown not to be able to contain the spreading of the COVID-19 virus. The Biden administration continues to turn a blind eye to the real science of the pandemic. So, today I want to expose why the Biden Administration’s new policy is a bad policy and how it ignores the best scientific data we have on the coronavirus to date.

The Biden administration continues to ignore the real science of the coronavirus pandemic. For example, last week Emory University released the most comprehensive study ever conducted on the natural immunity of recovered COVID-19 patients.

The study, which was published in Cell Reports Medicine, looked at 254 COVID-19 patients over a period of 250 days and found that their own natural immunity to the coronavirus remained both durable and strong for several months following their recovery.

It gets much better than this. The study found that the immune response of the 254 test subjects increased with the severity of the disease and also with each decade of age. The study not only found that the physical body produces its own neutralizing antibodies, but that it also activates both T and B cells, thus creating its own immunity memory response system to help ward off any future infections.

Dr. Rafi Ahmed, who led the study at Emory University, said about the study that “We saw that antibody responses, especially IgG antibodies, were not only durable in the vast majority of patients but decayed at a much slower pace than previously estimated, which suggests that patients are generating longer- lived plasma cells that can neutralize the SARS-Co-V-2 spike protein.” In other words, the body’s own natural immunity does not wear out within six to eight months as was previously thought.

So, despite the latest and best research to the contrary, the Biden Administration has pushed their own agenda forward to get everyone in the United States vaccinated as soon as possible, even for those who have already recovered from a coronavirus infection and have their body’s own natural immunity to protect them going forward into the future.

In response to the Biden Administration’s new policy, Dr. Paul Kempen, who leads the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, has responded to the ridiculousness and dangers of the Biden Administration’s new policy. Dr. Kempen said, “As of mid-July, 30 million people have recovered from COVID-19 in the U.S. and have natural immunity. Vaccination of these persons confers only risk with little to no benefit, yet these mandates do not exempt them.” He went on to warn the public about the vaccinations saying that, “Serious side effects have been identified, including paralysis and inflammation of the heart muscle, which may not be resolved and may cause death.”

So, why is a State Senator writing on such a federal issue? Well, as I said above, vaccinations are a matter of individual liberty and misinformation about natural immunity is now effecting every part of American society. For instance, the Regents at the University of Nebraska recently approved their SAFER COMMUNITIES App for students, which tracks the medical records of all university students in order to ensure compliance with the university’s new COVID-19 policy. Beginning this fall the University of Nebraska will be requiring all students to either get vaccinated or to get tested weekly for the coronavirus. But, such a policy ignores the most comprehensive and recent scientific data we have on natural immunity and unnecessarily infringes upon the personal liberties of the students.