From: Emanuel E Garcia
Date: April 15, 2020 at 3:10:25 PM EDT
To: Jacinda.Ardern@parliament.govt.nz
Cc: “Letters (DPT)” <letters@dompost.co.nz>
Subject: medical and humanistic concerns about lockdowns and isolation

Dear Prime Minister Ardern,

I am a psychiatrist employed by the Hutt Valley DHB, with whom I have worked for over 14 years. I am writing to express my concerns about the effects of the lockdown and isolation imposed by your emergency decrees on people generally, particularly those with mental illness. I also believe that any extended lockdown will be medically unsound from an infectious disease perspective, as it will prevent the development of natural group immunity.

People must be people: we cannot live for very long without the sustaining glow of human companionship, or the productive cooperation that employment affords. Businesses are going under, workers are losing jobs they will never recover, anxiety and depression are worsening, and for what? While we may make a daily ritual of counting Covid-related deaths and Covid carriers, the vast majority of whom are asyptomatic, will there be a similar toll of the misery that is unfolding as a result of depression, isolation, unemployment and the interruption of religious celebrations?

In summary, how many people are we actually saving from an infectious disease that is turning out, according to the most reliable statistics, to be no worse than an ordinary flu, and at what cost to our mental, emotional, economic and spiritual well-being?

Please allow me to refer you to the superb interview with a medical expert from the United States (see below), as well as the article in which other experts weigh in on COVID.

I am a dual citizen of the United States and New Zealand, by the way, and I am doing my bit during this difficult time to sustain the health of my fellow New Zealanders, as a doctor.

Sincerely,

Emanuel E. Garcia, MD
2A/39 Marine Paradae
Eastbourne 5013

021 0227 3439

12 Experts Questioning the Coronavirus Panic
Off-Guardian, 24 Mar 2020
https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/24/12-experts-questioning-the-coronavirus-panic

Perspectives on the Pandemic Episode 3:
A Conversation with Dr. David L Katz concerning “Total Harm Minimization”
The Press & The Public Project, 9 Apr 2020
https://ratical.org/PerspectivesOnPandemic-III.html