Nope: With Federal Assistance in Limbo, Commissioner Says Refusal Linked to Opposition to Vaccine Mandate
Lewis County Commissioner Sean Swope said Monday he was “not budging” with his disapproval of a resolution that would put the county back in a state of emergency to be eligible for state and federal funding and assistance.
The state of emergency would have provided county staff the ability to quickly execute responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and allows the county to enter into certain contracts for crisis response, specifically with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Swope, whose vote is currently critical for passing any legislation on the two-member board with the late Gary Stamper’s seat still vacant, said he is unwilling to give the county his vote to bring in federal workers and aid when Washington state this week is expected to lay off thousands due to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
County staff said emergency responders and medical providers have said they’re stretched on resources and staffing for multiple reasons, some including the vaccine mandate.
“We are not going to bring in federal workers. Bring back the people who have been fired. When we fix that problem, then I would entertain something like this because then it would be a true state of emergency. Not based off of, ‘Well, we’re going to fire everyone that’s unvaccinated and bring in federal workers that are vaccinated,’” Swope said. “That’s terrible and we’re not going to do that here in Lewis County. I will not vote for this.”
Swope expanded on his reasoning in a statement to The Chronicle after the meeting.
“The county's state of emergency proclamation has nothing to do with funding,” he said. “Our county is covered by the state emergency proclamation when it comes to federal funding. The proclamation presented to the commissioners today was about bringing in federal workers to fill the gaps left from those who have been stripped of their jobs. We don’t need federal workers when we now have thousands, if not tens of thousands of people who are now jobless due to Jay Inslee’s heartless mandate.”
Limited testing resources, also already stretched thin, could be exacerbated as Washington state requires testing to attend large events, Lewis County Public Health & Social Services Director JP Anderson said.
The county is also operating a testing clinic at Southwest Washington Fairgrounds to return students back to in-person learning as soon as possible.
Swope also sparred with county staff about the critical nature of the availability of intensive care unit (ICU) beds, saying “the manipulation of emotions and facts” didn’t sit well with him. Anderson said Providence Southwest briefed public health officials and said it is short on staff to keep their ICU opened over the weekend.
Resolution No. 21-372, the legislation declaring the local declaration of emergency, wasn’t added to the board’s Tuesday regular business agenda for a vote, a spokesperson for the county said Monday.
Transmission of COVID-19 locally remains elevated and the number of county residents dying weekly remains high. According to Public Health, 22 COVID-related deaths and 178 new cases of the virus were reported the week of Oct. 3-9. The county also reported 593.2 new cases per 100,000 population within the last two weeks.
While the rate of new cases continues to decline, hospitalizations and deaths remain elevated with health care services stretched thin.
Eleven state Senate Republicans two weeks ago called on Gov. Jay Inslee to mobilize the Washington National Guard to support hospitals overwhelmed by the COVID-19 delta variant.
Lewis County’s former chief civil deputy prosecutor Eric Eisenberg, who said he was speaking as a private citizen, told commissioners he believes that a combination of retiring EMS volunteers due to the vaccine mandate, ICU staffing shortages and long wait times would put the local area at risk of being low-staffed and that could possibly lead to further bottlenecking at the hospital “that might be worse” than what they’ve seen before. Eisenberg spoke after asking the commissioners if they would like to hear his input regarding the policy behind the emergency declaration. Commissioner Lindsey Pollock indidcated she did.
“Even if we’re not facing that emergency now, it’s really foreseeable and it seems that, as a matter of emergency planning, it’s reasonable for DEM (Lewis County Department of Emergency Management) to be trying to figure out a way to quickly respond in case that happens again,” Eisenberg said.
He added that if in fact the shortages are due to Inslee’s vaccine mandate, the county can’t change that. It’s better policy, Eisenberg said, for them to be able to staff the hospitals and emergency services with whomever’s qualified to do the job — even if that means state or federal workers.
“There are 80,000 people who live in Lewis County, and if some of their grandmothers have heart attacks for reasons that have nothing to due with COVID, they care less about whether it is fair to the hospital workers for us to take this step and they care more about there being somebody there to help save their loved one,” Eisenberg said.
Commissioner Lindsey Pollock said she understood where her fellow commissioner was coming from, but noted that the county needed to consider the options given there was a clear barrier for the public to access emergency health and health care services at the moment.
“The question though is how do we get care, if it is needed, to the people? And this is not a problem of our creation. I disagree with the whole situation that we are in. But just because we disagree with the situation that we find ourselves in, we have to find an acceptable path forward for our citizens,” Pollock said.
Swope in the past has voiced criticism for extending or passing state of emergency orders.
In June, Swope abstained from voting to extend a similar declaration of emergency, noting that “it just sends the wrong message” for the county to be accepting available funds and that there was “no need” to continue funding a mass vaccination site at that moment as demand had subsided.
Pollock and Stamper were able to pass that extension anyways, according to previously Chronicle reporting. It expired in August.
Stamper died due to COVID-19 after a five-week battle late last month. He had been vaccinated against the virus.
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The story was updated to include a clarifying statement from Swope.
This story was updated to clarify that Eric Eisenberg was speaking as a private citizen.
