KAGMAN High School teacher Paul Murphy said he and his wife, who is also a teacher, were threatened with AWOL and or termination for refusing to be tested for Covid-19.
“I submitted my religious exemption last year,” he said. “I submitted a religious exemption also this year, but they [the Public School System administration] said no accommodation whatsoever would be made.”
Murphy said some of his students have also told him that they don’t want to wear masks in school or get tested for religious reasons, “but they are afraid because they are going to be kicked out of school and they don’t know how to fight back.”
Murphy said he objected to the school’s Covid-19 policy. “There is so much fear, discrimination, and threatening going on — it’s pretty terrible; but so many are afraid to speak out because they are afraid of being terminated.”
Murphy, who has a master’s degree in intelligence studies from the American Military University, said in early November 2021, he provided the governor’s office, the Attorney General’s Office, the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. and some legislators the findings of a research he conducted regarding polymerase chain reaction or PCR test for Covid-19.
He said his research concluded that with PCR tests “positive results do not rule out bacterial infection or co-infection with other viruses.”
“The SARS-CoV-2 RNA is generally detectable in respiratory specimens during the acute phase of infection. Positive results are indicative of the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA [but] clinical correlation with patient history and other diagnostic information is necessary to determine patient infection status. The agent detected may not be the definite cause of disease,” Murphy said.
“PCR tests can specifically identify whatever it’s programmed to identify, but it cannot determine the infectiousness of a person. For example, a person may be positive for Covid-19 but not be spreading the virus because the person had it three months ago, but that same person may still be sick from a bacterium and the testing won’t differentiate. Simply put the [PCR] tests cannot tell if a person is sick or not,” he added.
“It can only detect if the nucleotide or antigen is present. These also depend on a variety of variables to include the physical environment, temperature, application by the tester, etc.”
Murphy said he provided the PSS administration with his research to support his refusal to get tested, “but they have ignored it all and chose rather to use force in the name of ‘health and safety.’”
Murphy said on Nov. 19 he sent an Open Government Act request to CHCC addressed to CEO Esther Muna, requesting information on “the pandemic influenza severity assessment and/or pandemic severity assessment and/or any assessment conducted by CHCC for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands justifying the declaration of a public health emergency and/or the advisement to the Governor to declare a public health emergency.”
He likewise requested information on a “documented case of an individual who never received a Covid-19 vaccine, was infected with Covid-19, recovered, and then later re-infected again, and transmitted the Covid-19 virus to another person when re-infected.”
On Nov. 29, CHCC responded to his Open Government Act request and stated that it has “performed a search for records responsive to your [request but] there are no responsive records to be produced.”
According to Murphy, “research across the world shows that spikes have only occurred after vaccinations. Florida after opening had a spike for a month or so, but now has the lowest [number of cases].”
He said the CNMI never had to declare a public emergency. “There are a variety of options, not just vaccination. A variety of treatments do work and have worked successfully to treat Covid. Even if [a public health emergency declaration] was necessary at the beginning it most definitely isn’t anymore.”
