04. Kayla Bishop1.mp4: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix

04. Kayla Bishop1.mp4: this mp4 video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Kalya Bishop:
So I was hesitant about the vaccines right off the bat. I come from theater which you're always working in a time crunch, so I know how things can get missed when that happened, and I know what the vaccine is coming out. There was a lot of pressure to get them out fast. So I did a lot of research about how they worked and. I found a couple articles about how the spike protein separated from COVID was damaging, and I knew that the vaccines used spike protein. So I was concerned about the safety in that, and I couldn't find any information about how the spike protein in the vaccine was different than the spike protein and COVID. So I chose not to get vaccinated. Also because I'm young, I'm healthy, I had no co-morbidities. So my risk benefit analysis, it just didn't make sense to get vaccinated. And then school mandated it. And I had I remember looking through their COVID policy to see if there was an option for testing, and they didn't have that. My program was one of the few that had in-person exemptions throughout most of the pandemic, so I knew that I'd be in school. Um, a lot of reasons for me choosing to get vaccinated despite having, like, knowledge of risks. If you drop out of your program, which is what I was considering doing, all your grant funding from OSAP turns into loans, so I'd have a whole lot of extra loan to pay off and no credentials to help me get work.

Kalya Bishop:
Plus, getting work when being unvaccinated would have been difficult and I was thinking of holding off. But there's only so long you can do that. And so I chose to get vaccinated. And after my second dose that night, I woke up. I had. I was breathing like around a marathon. I had 3 hours of chest pain. I went away for a day. And then I came back. Which was when I went to the emergency room. I was sent to respirologist originally and they found out I have tachycardia, which is an elevated heart rate and I'm still getting testing done. I'm seeing a cardiologist for that. In terms of school, that's been difficult. I needed a whole lot of extra sleep because of my injury, so there's less time to work on school. Hard to focus while wearing a mask. And there were I remember before the convoy happened, there was rumors that they'd be mandating the third shot. So I remember emailing my head of program in a panic, saying, like, I know you don't have this information yet, but if they mandate it, what can I do? Because this is my situation. So yeah, that's my story. I'm still figuring out health issues and I'm also theater. My performance production is a very. Physically demanding job. And so I'm not sure if I can even do what I went to school for.

Trish Wood:
All right. So I'm going to hand it over to to the panel in a second. But I did not get your affirmation as we're getting from all of our all of our speakers, that what you're saying today is true to the best of your ability to know that and to your recollection.

Kalya Bishop:
Yeah.

Trish Wood:
Thank you very much. Over to the panel.

Preston Manning:
Well, thank you again, Kayla, for sharing this. And you're very articulate, actually, on, you know, you made an effort to understand the science very, very early, which many people did not. My question is, suppose that eventually there is held an independent, non-governmental national inquiry into how the whole COVID thing was handled. And they were to ask you what could or should have been done differently so that your situation would have been accommodated. What would you tell them? I know I'm putting you on the spot, but if such an inquiry was held and they ask you, well, what could have been done differently to accommodate your circumstance, what might you tell them?

Kalya Bishop:
Well our school didn't Ryerson now Toronto metropolitan it doesn't have an option for testing and I would have I would have been happy doing testing at regular frequencies to attend school. As far as I'm aware, COVID policies was mandated across the board in Ontario for universities which. Personally, I don't feel like universities should be the ones telling people what to do about medical decisions because everyone's different. And definitely having testing options because thought it would still cover concerns about COVID and health. But I would allow people to have that option if they so chose.

Preston Manning:
Okay. Thank you.

Dr. Susan Natsheh :
Thank you, Kayla, and thank you so much for sharing your story. I'm sorry you were hurt. By the decision. I was just wondering, is there a way that you could think? To encourage open to open discourse amongst the universities. It seems like the narrative is very one sided. Do you have any suggestions about how to. I guess, engage others to feel free, comfortable to speak.

Kalya Bishop:
The universities, as far as I know, didn't give they just mandated it. I don't think there was any sort of back and forth between the university and students, and I think that would have been really helpful. I know a lot of people were pushing for a hybrid, so there was a choice to go to school or not. There was no dialogue between the university's administration and the students, as far as I'm aware, and I think that would be a good step.

Trish Wood:
Yeah. I just you mentioned at the beginning of your your talk that you you kind of well understood the risk benefit ratio. But but I'm wondering also in the discussions around attendance at school and schools that schools that. Pushed students to doing their schoolwork online. Was there ever any discussion that you heard from the university about risk benefit ratios in that and that discussion? And what I mean by that is, obviously, university students are the healthiest cohort probably of anybody, the least likely to die of COVID 19 without comorbidities. But they they even vaccinated people were locked out of school in certain places. Did you. Was anybody sensibly discussion discussing the actual risk to the students? Of having a bad outcome, I mean, from COVID infection.

Kalya Bishop:
As far as I'm aware. No, I know there was a lot of push when I was fully online. There was a lot of push from my department to have in-person classes, at least for certain parts, because we're so hands on like the dance students they did a year of online. And so I know there was a lot of push to have stuff in person from my department, but I never heard much in terms of risk benefit. Discussions from the university. So if those conversations were had, I'm not aware of them.

Trish Wood:
And I guess unless the panel has another question.

Preston Manning:
Yeah. No, I think Kayla's made a very important point. I know we're not supposed to discuss conclusions before we get there, but this business of the government gives a mandate and orders to these institutions. In this case, the university does to companies and everybody else. And the fact that there's no dialogue, as you mentioned, between that institution and the people that are involved in it, is how it is to make this work. Does this make sense? I think that's a very missing ingredient in how this whole thing was handled. And and thank you for raising that. I think it's got ramifications beyond just student university relations. I think companies went ahead with mandates without any discussion with their employees. Other institutions did the same thing. It's an undemocratic way for one sense to proceed, and I think you've put your finger on it. So thank you. Yeah.

Trish Wood:
And I guess finally I'll ask how you're doing now. How is your health now?

Kalya Bishop:
I'm still having problems. It's evened out. So it's been fairly regular throughout most of it. I still have chest pain that kind of comes and goes randomly and. So I'm figuring it out. But I'm still not normal.

Trish Wood:
Still not normal. Okay. Well, thanks so much for doing this.

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