'We became inhuman': Virginians give lawmakers earful about COVID restrictions, treatment, mandates

Four years after hospitals started refusing cheap treatments for the novel coronavirus, schools locked their doors to students through the next academic year and masking went from discouraged to demanded virtually overnight, Virginians have not forgotten.

Citizens from teenagers to seniors testified at a Pandemic Response and Preparedness Joint Subcommittee meeting Monday to forcefully insist the Virginia Legislature elevate their voices over the consulting firm hired by lawmakers to analyze the Old Dominion's COVID-19 response and interview "stakeholders," a term they interpreted as contrary to "the people."

"You don't have qualified immunity" and Virginians will seek personal liability in court against lawmakers for their decisions during COVID, Anne Craft Taydus, vice president of Virginians for Children First, told elected officials.

Several speakers wore buttons opposing the World Health Organization and spoke against its pandemic treaty, whose deadline for countries to sign is this month, and the proposed amendments to its International Health Regulations, discussion of which led Google to threaten to censor a heterodox economics blog this spring.

Some fought back tears as they shared stories of loved ones who died following hospital refusals to grant preferred treatment, especially inexpensive ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. An epidemiology journal based at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health promoted HCQ in tandem with azithromycin as a promising early-stage COVID treatment in May 2020.

Speakers also alleged sick family members were instead given remdesivir – sometimes mocked as "run, death is near" for its serious documented adverse events – because the drug fetches a premium in commercial insurance, about $3,200 per patient.

Republican U.S. senators led by Wisconsin's Ron Johnson accused the Biden administration in a fall 2021 letter of a "strong bias" against ivermectin and "other potential early treatment drugs" while favoring pricey remdesivir.

A string of speakers Monday identified themselves as members of the Virginia Medical Freedom Alliance, a tax-exempt social-welfare group that promotes the "freedom of healthcare professionals to provide private, individualized and evidence-based ethical care to their patients" on issues from COVID to "wireless radiation."

"You wanted people to die because it pushed your protocol that COVID was something to be frightened of," VMFA President Sheila Furey told the subcommittee. 

The alliance "begged" state officials and agencies for hard data about deaths, serious injuries and the economic impact of mandates and closures, to no avail, member Barbara Zedler said. "You have a room full of stakeholders right here" who were ignored for four years, nurse member Susan Franz said to loud applause.

Sen. David Suetterlein, one of only two Republicans among 10 state lawmakers on the 24-member subcommittee, called for another GOP appointment before public comment, prompting applause from the audience.

Another eight members are citizens, including representatives from K-12 public education, four-year higher education, public and private hospitals, and two municipal officials. The rest are ex officio members: the Virginia secretaries of commerce, education, finance, health and public safety, and executive secretary of the state Supreme Court.

The subcommittee swiftly adjourned the meeting after the audience responded derisively to Delegate Candi Mundon King, who co-chairs the body with a fellow Democrat, Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell. 

King said the speakers, who uniformly opposed COVID mandates, restrictions on treatments and a large government role, had the "economic freedom" to attend the daytime meeting. She is "committed to hearing all of those voices" who "don't have the privilege" to do so. 

"The medical system was doing everything they could to save lives" early in the pandemic, and her colleagues had to make "very hard decisions," King said.

Just the News obtained the handwritten sign-up sheet for public comment from the Senate Operations Committee. Speakers rarely stopped after reaching the two-minute limit, prompting Surovell to order them to wrap up, sometimes repeatedly as they raised their voices.

The Rev. Craig Johnson, founder of The First Amendment, Inc. and a local talk radio host, opened public comment. He was the only black man who spoke from an overwhelming female and white audience, denouncing the "one-size-fits-all … top-down control of all healthcare" during COVID.

Remdesivir killed his father-in-law when HCQ and ivermectin "would have saved his life," Johnson said. He asked the subcommittee to "analyze the difference between places where there was no medical freedom" versus where there was, to see which did better during COVID.

VMFA member Susan Hines cried as she described the hospital denying her husband of "43-and-a-half years" monoclonal antibodies, instead putting him on remdesivir, whose side effects include kidney damage, despite having only one kidney. 

Hines repeatedly asked his doctors why her husband couldn't be put on the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance drug regimen, and they responded "hospitals have rules," she said. 

He died in 2022 after Hines spent thousands of dollars on lawyers to get a court order for the preferred treatment, she said: "This system took away our retirement years." She was the only speaker Surovell didn't interrupt after exceeding her time. 

Johnice Weingart said her family spent $20,000 on a lawyer to force a hospital to give a relative vitamin C treatment. He died before the court order came through, she said.

Three members of the Machen family spoke, including teenagers Peter, who shared uncredited statistics about COVID vaccine injuries, and Ruth, who said forced masking gave her "uncontrollable coughing" and rashes.

"I probably would have been swinging from the bedroom curtains" during lockdown if not for her family's support, she said.

Despite a no-questions medical exemption in former Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam's mask mandate, Christy Williams said she and her daughter, who has asthma, were repeatedly "harassed" entering medical institutions and stores for not wearing a "paper mask."

"How was it decided that we could go to the grocery store but not to church" under COVID restrictions, Williams asked. "How is it that we became inhuman" by denying last rites to the dying.

Cathy Tankersley said she represented a disabled woman with PTSD whose masking triggered panic attacks. Her requests for Americans with Disabilities Act accommodations were repeatedly denied in healthcare settings, she was refused medical care four times, and she was once "forced to sit in a construction area" full of dust just to get a tele-health appointment.

Virginia policy under Northam "weaponized fear of a modestly pathogenic respiratory virus," said Sharon Landrum, who also claimed she was banned from air travel and harassed for not wearing a mask despite her medical exemption. 

She lost two friends because of COVID treatment protocols, she said, urging lawmakers to reconsider the anti-mandate Great Barrington Declaration and model their policy after Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo's.

Registered nurse Pamela Burnham, who said she served on the front lines of COVID, claimed "deadly hospital protocols" including remdesivir treatment are still in place.

Holly Rhode, wearing a Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. hat, said she successfully took HCQ after her rheumatologist warned Rhode that COVID could worsen her autoimmune disorder.

After several anti-WHO speeches, Suetterlein asked speakers to plead before Virginia's U.S. Senate delegation, Democrats Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, because the Legislature has no influence over treaties.

Registered nurse Carol Sargeant, who said she once worked in clinical research at Virginia Commonwealth University, responded by challenging Suetterlein to speak against the treaty. The WHO is "global parasites" creating a "dystopian world" of mandatory masking, vaccination and isolation, she said.

Doris Knick asked why lawmakers didn't invite high-profile critics of conventional COVID policy, noting a similar Arizona legislative committee invited lawyer Aaron Siri and cardiologist Peter McCullough.

"'Trust the science' has never been anything but a marketing term," she said, sarcastically thanking Surovell for "your two minutes" as he told her to wrap up.