Letter to the Editor:
MyBurbank contributor, Patricia McCarthy, has written a dangerously inaccurate letter currently published that, if believed, poses a deadly public health risk to the LA community. Her two main points were that “given what we now know, covid was never as life-threatening as the government said it was; the vaccines were more dangerous than the virus” and “the owners of Tinhorn Flats were the smart guys and no one who went there while it remained open contracted the virus. Those who fell for the scam were gullible sheep so the city should absorb whatever costs they allegedly incurred and consider it a lesson learned”.
I had written locally about the Tinhorn Flats Saloon since 2020 when the Lepejian family who owned that drinking establishment on W. Magnolia in Burbank began defying orders from the LA Health Dept. and the City of Burbank to close for the safety of the public and became the lone local business to defy all orders, even from the courts, to do so. During the months that Tinhorn Flats remained open there were mostly unvaccinated workers and patrons on the premises not wearing masks who helped spread the deadly coronavirus far and wide, resulting in 100,000 persons Californians and 1.1 million Americans dead from it in less than two years.
Included in the defiance of all orders to close Tinhorn Flats were the weekly organized Sat. protests of their supporters outside their building, many who claimed they were inspired by the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the Washington DC Capitol Bldg. There were ample Trump banners, Confederate flags, and loud patriotic music made by hundreds of protesters, some who threatened violence if they did not get successfully keep the Tinhorn open. Many in the mob outside whom I spoke with said they were not Burbank residents
Ms. McCarthy obviously does not get her facts from published scientists in the field of medicine and public health. Below are two scientific journals which refutes 100% the reckless statements made by her, which I hope readers will take seriously and be aware of. Covid is unfortunately once again on the rise, putting all of us at deadly risk, and we cannot afford ignorance of its dangers.
Lastly, the tax payers of Burbank should not, despite what Ms. McCarthy believes to the contrary, have to bear the Tinhorn Flat’s financial burden of their more than $300,000 in legal and police enforcement costs to our community, especially when the owner, Baret Lepejian was able to scam his sympathizers out of $94,000 they contributed to him on the GoFundMe web site, plus $65,000 he received in government covid relief money.
US Center For Disease Control (CDC): How COVID-19 Spreads
Updated Aug. 11, 2022
COVID-19 spreads when an infected person breathes out droplets and very small particles that contain the virus. These droplets and particles can be breathed in by other people or land on their eyes, noses, or mouth. In some circumstances, they may contaminate surfaces they touch.
Office for Science and Society
McGill University801 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, Quebec H3A 0B8
Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. | 23 Jul 2021
Despite their limitations, these real-world studies, combined with the large clinical trials that put these vaccines to the test and with newer trials done to test these vaccines against the new variants and in subpopulations that were not part of the original trials, all point in the same direction: the COVID-19 vaccines work and work really well.
The final piece of the puzzle is a more sombre one: nearly all U.S. deaths involving COVID-19 are now among the unvaccinated. In Canada, the majority of COVID-19 deaths are also among unvaccinated people.
Doug Weiskopf
Burbank
