This week, Costa Rican president Carlos Alvarado Quesada made an announcement that decimated all the hopes and dreams and plans Michel and I have spent the past two years developing. As of December 1, no one can enter non-essential public spaces without a QR code verifying their up-to-date vaccine status. This applies to Costa Rican nationals, residents, and tourists. We anticipate that this mandate will eventually extend to all forms of public transportation as well as travelers coming into the country.
I'm pretty sure that Costa Rica just bankrupted itself through the loss of millions of dollars in revenue from the tourist sector and much of the response I’ve seen on social media bears out this suspicion. It certainly ends Michel's and my conversation about investing in a tourism project here as well as potentially ends our plans to remain in the country, period.
Let me first make it absolutely clear that I am not an anti-vaxxer. I have my own reasons for refusing, but the choice should be left to the individual. I have a fully functioning brain supported by eyes, ears, and all other senses, and I have the ability to do my own investigation into the facts. So does everyone else. I will tell you the facts of my own experience and Michel’s experience, as well as the facts I have learned directly from others in my immediate circle of contacts. Unlike opinions, facts are hard to debate. They are what they are, like them or not.
FACT: I have lupus. Fact: I have pre-existing thrombolitic issues, including persistently elevated D-dimers and a history of blood clotting abnormalities. Fact: I have been diagnosed with paroxysmal afib and prescribed medications to treat it that include Cardizem (an anti-arrhythmic) and Eliquis (an anti-coagulant.) Fact: the last vaccine I took for the flu resulted in my hospitalization because of a reaction to the adjuvents. Fact: I know personally of four separate people in two different countries who have experienced thrombolitic emergencies after being vaccinated. Fact: based on my previous vaccine reaction, my physician has stated point-blank that any vaccine is potentially risky for me. Fact: I know several people who received one and in some cases two doses of vaccine and still contracted the virus. One even passed it on to a family member who became very ill and was hospitalized. Therefore I have to extrapolate that the risks for me outweigh any benefits. Taking a chance that I will contract said virus is like playing Russian roulette. Taking the vaccine is like intentionally shooting myself in the head and hoping the bullet doesn’t do too much damage.
Michel’s objection to vaccine mandates is different. He has experienced firsthand the overreach of a tyrannical government and has watched his family suffer the complete humanitarian breakdown of a nation once recognized worldwide for its balance of liberties and effective social programs. Michel is not American. He is French, and as a consequence, he and I were seeing and dealing with loss of freedoms and civil rights long before anyone in America saw any changes coming.
What happened in Costa Rica this week sent him reeling backward into a deja vu of panic and helplessness and triggered all sorts of fight or flight responses. The trauma is real, folks, when you see what he’s seen. He knows from witnessing a similar sequence of events in France that Costa Rica is on a downhill run into totalitarianism, but that—unlike France—the people here may be willing to roll belly-up and let it progress. Many Ticos, especially the poorest and uneducated families, tend to go along with whatever their government prescribes, whether it’s good for them or not. This is a cultural and generational issue and it will be difficult to change. The Costa Rican government knows this and exploits it. Now that the vaccine mandates have passed—even though they have been declared illegal by many who are well-versed in Costa Rican law, the Costa Rican government is not likely to stop with just health pass restrictions. France didn't. And there’s a lesson in recent history for us all.
Michel saw these things developing long before a vaccine even existed, with his family and friends in France losing freedoms essential to their livelihoods. His mother was shopping at a major department store in early 2020 when she took a "non-essential" item off a shelf to look at it. A store employee jerked the item out of her hands and informed her that they could not sell it to her, as per government regulations. "Essential" items only. From that point onward, things only escalated, culminating in Michel's horrific experience in October of last year when he flew home, was compelled by force to have a PCR test that he didn't need and that he was not legally required to take, during which he was injured as a result of rough (brute force) manhandling, and after which he became symptomatic despite a negative result. He was then held as a literal prisoner in his home in Waziers through the course of his illness with no family permitted to travel into the city to assist him.
After his eventual recovery, this period of house arrest was extended because, by that time, being caught on the street without an "exceptional movement permit" was a crime punishable with a hefty fine. He could not even “legally” travel to the airport to catch a return flight back to our home in Morocco because it wasn't "essential travel." He had to sneak to the airport and evade police detection. Once he was actually in the airport, the airline honored his ticket and he got the hell out of there. But he has no plans of ever returning to France at this point and is seeking ways to get his mother out. They've lightened up on the movement restrictions, but only for people with digital vaccine passes, which are now at risk of becoming invalid without the third shot.
Then, early this year, Michel's French banker inexplicably refused to honor a transfer request made through proper channels and would not let Michel export his money out of the EU into Costa Rica. In a bizarre inverse KYC interrogation, the banker demanded to know what reason Michel was in CR and what the money was to be used for. Quite frankly, it was none of his damn business. Michel resorted to small daily transfers through TransferWise into a Belgian third party holding account. He managed to get all but a few hundred dollars out of France before his banker shut down online access to his account.
But it gets worse from there. A few weeks ago, Michel attempted to transfer funds from the Belgian account to my U.S. account, a process he had completed many times previously. It was a small amount, grocery money, sent to me because his bank card no longer worked. The transfer was declined. By cooperating with another, albeit less invasive KYC investigation, he got the problem sorted but was never given a sufficient explanation, only that there are “new restrictions” regarding euro to USD conversion. Since then, Michel has been able to obtain no new information regarding such restrictions but fears, with good reason, that any money he’s holding in an EU account may be lost to him at any time, without warning. It’s sobering. And quite frankly, terrifying.
Now Costa Rica is very transparently stating that they are following the EU precedent with vaccine mandates and even tourists must comply. Entrance into and out of this country will most likely be affected after Dec. 1 just like access to public spaces and, ostensibly, public transportation. Sound familiar? It’s the exact same path that France just went down. And we don't think it's going to get better, only worse.
Think it can’t happen in the U.S? Give in to those proposed vaccine mandates and just see where you end up. Believe me, they are only the first move. I’m deeply concerned that too many people are falling into lockstep with the government’s rhetoric for there to be sufficient resistance. The mandates are not about protecting the population. They’re about controlling the population. Michel and I have seen this scenario play out with our own eyes. Yet I’ve had a very difficult time explaining to many people how it’s all connected. As in, what does France’s banking overstep have to do with vaccine mandates? Well...it’s a succession of events. Start by stripping essential rights from your people under the guise of “protecting” them, fill them with fear, make half the population feel beholden and the other half feel helpless, then slip in a bunch of unconstitutional changes to policy about how people can use their own money, and voila. France 2.0 or worse. Like that $600 tax reporting threshold the U.S. is now looking at. Does any real human anywhere really think that’s going to be good for the American people? But American people are so confused by the Big Government trying so hard to “protect” them ... it’s just a mess. God help us all.
