MOHAVE COUNTY – A broad range of COVID-19 thought was expressed during Monday’s Mohave County Board of Supervisors meeting in Kingman. Bullhead City resident Scotty McClure said he thinks local government should require county and city employees to be vaccinated to protect against the coronavirus.
Skeptics in the audience expressed concern that the government is using fear to bully citizens into getting shots. Won’t happen at his house said District 5 Supervisor Ron Gould.
“If Biden’s boys show up at my door I don’t know how they think I’m going to get vaccinated because it’s not going to go well,” Gould said. “It’s just a ridiculous notion that you’re going to send out people and try to coerce them into getting vaccinated.”
Burley assured the board that her employees will not engage in door-to-door vaccination promotion, though she said it’s important to work to get more information and vaccine access provided in remote areas of the county. Her proposal to use federal funds to hire additional staff for that purpose drew blow back from District 2 and District 1 Supervisors Hildy Angius and Travis Lingenfelter.
“I don’t know why we need five other people to go out in these rural communities to have a louder and louder bullhorn about what we’ve been hearing for over a year and a half,” Lingenfelter said.
A couple of audience members ridiculed Department of Public Health Director Denise Burley for supporting recommendations and guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Arizona Department of Health Services. Gould didn’t transfer that blame to Burley, but he expressed understanding of public frustration with guidance that has fluctuated through the pandemic.
“The big problem is that no one trusts the CDC. They’ve flip-flopped on their positions,” Gould said. “That’s the big reason why people aren’t getting vaccinated. They don’t trust their government and they don’t trust the CDC because they can’t get a straight answer.”
Burley countered that the world has been dealing with a mystery virus and that it is understandable that recommendations have varied over time.
“As you learn and get more and more research, you’re going to have to change your guidance. You learn. You adapt and revise and move forward and the research is fast and furious, Burley said. “Everybody expects an answer immediately and then when it changes, it’s `well how do we trust this’, but ultimately we have to trust the science.”
Lingenfelter reiterated his belief that health decisions should be made among individuals and their families and their medical counsel, and that people have become pandemic puppets.
“For over a year now we’re really taking a bad turn away from personal accountability in this country,” Lingenfelter said. “This is just incrementally taking us towards you don’t have any personal accountability or responsibility. The government is here to take care of you and I won’t support that.”
And Lingenfelter said it’s very wrong for citizens to be discouraged from questioning government policy, particularly with all the uncertainty and unknowns of the pandemic.
“I think that people are getting shamed and guilt tripped for employing critical thinking,” he said. “I don’t agree with that.”
Dave Hawkins