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September 29, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Almost 400 medical doctors and more than 1,300 other health professionals in Belgium (along with nearly 9,000 Belgian citizens) have signed an open letter calling for an “immediate restoration of our normal democratic governance and legal structures and of all our civil liberties,” arguing “there is no medical justification for any emergency policy any more” on COVID-19.
The letter argues that the country’s current policies “are not sufficiently scientifically based, unilaterally directed, and that there is not enough space in the media for an open debate in which different views and opinions are heard,” despite the government’s own “minimal policy” on the broader subject of disease prevention, which focuses on “strengthening our own immune system through a healthy lifestyle, optimal care with attention for the individual and investment in care personnel.”
To date, Belgium has seen more than 115,000 cases of COVID-19, with nearly 10,000 deaths and more than 19,000 recoveries. Like many countries, it responded by imposing mandates to wear masks and socially distance, among other measures.
“There is no link between the imposed lockdown and the course of the infection,” the letter argues. “If we look at the date of application of the imposed lockdowns, we see that the lockdowns were set after the peak was already over and the number of cases decreasing. The drop was therefore not the result of the taken measures.” (The conservative Heritage Foundation reached the same conclusion this summer in a comparative analysis of the United States, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Italy, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Iran.)
The signatories believe that “climatic conditions (weather, temperature and humidity) and growing immunity are more likely to reduce the wave of infection,” along with prevention in the form of “healthy, full-fledged nutrition, exercise in fresh air, without a mask, stress reduction and nourishing emotional and social contacts.”
By contrast, the “social isolation” accompanying lockdowns lead to “an increase in depression, anxiety, suicides, intra-family violence and child abuse,” as well as “physical inactivity in many older people.” In the United States, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) director Dr. Robert Redfield affirmed similar concerns this summer when he said the CDC had seen “far greater suicides” and deaths from drug overdoses than from COVID-19.
“As doctors and health professionals, in the face of a virus which, in terms of its harmfulness, mortality and transmissibility, approaches the seasonal influenza, we can only reject these extremely disproportionate measures,” the letter concludes, calling for an “immediate end to all measures” and an “in-depth examination of the role of the (World Health Organization) and the possible influence of conflicts of interest in this organisation.”