Given the near-total county-level refusal across Oregon to enact new measures to combat the spread of the delta variant of the coronavirus, Governor Kate Brown’s decision in June to push responsibility for coronavirus prevention measures to the counties, and not promulgate new statewide mandates, looks more and more like a grave mistake. I don’t know what specific mix of reasons are behind her inaction, but it’s hard not to think that the governor has been intimidated by a right-wing and business community backlash against covid restrictions that were in place until fairly recently. As articles like this one from Oregon Public Broadcasting describe, ICU hospital beds in the state are filled nearly to the previous highest point of the pandemic, while in southern Oregon, infection rates are surpassing the winter’s highs. As a nurse interviewed in the piece says, all this illness was preventable.
While it makes sense to consider whether new rules might be counterproductive should they provoke a backlash, this logically doesn’t seem possible when counties aren’t promulgating any new rules in the first place. Things simply can’t get worse than they already are. And at any rate, we are deep into this pandemic, and know what works from a public health perspective. Masking works. Social distancing works. And above all, vaccination of as many people as possible works. Arguments from slow-moving county officials that ordinary Oregonians know what to do at this point, and that therefore new regulations are unnecessary, is simply wrong — not when so much disinformation continues to circulate, and when the Republican Party has tacitly made mask resistance and vaccine reluctance core to the party’s identity. In refusing to countenance common-sense measures like mask mandates in public places, these public officials are helping to amplify the deadly lies, and are often embracing partisan identity over patriotic, humanitarian values. They are failing to do their duty. Amid so much propaganda and disinformation, strong public guidance and rules to combat the coronavirus are absolutely necessary.
It is clear at this point that the bulk of vaccine resistance, as well as resistance to common-sense measures like masking, is driven by a combination of disinformation and right-wing identity politics. Neither are valid bases for making public health decisions, and in fact are problems that should be targeted for refutation by public-minded politicians.
The governor’s responsibility in the midst of a pandemic that has already taken the lives of thousands of Oregonians, and which now threatens to kill many more, is to minimize further loss of life. As this Oregonian article notes, Governor Brown can effectively take the heat for unpopular decisions, drawing fire from county-level executives who are afraid to enrage misinformed constituents. The fact that she’s not running for re-election means that she has little to lose at this point (and if she’s holding back for fear of a negative impact on her future political career — perhaps a run as a senator or representative at some point — then shame on her).
If the governor refuses to act, then Multnomah County commissioners and health officials need to institute stricter measures to protect the state’s most populous county, including a requirement for proof of vaccination or a recent negative covid test for dining in at restaurants, going to movie theaters, and other leisure activities. Mask mandates should be reinstated for businesses, and business owners should be encouraged to require employees to be vaccinated. It is an abomination that a year and half into this pandemic, when we have miraculous vaccines that could stop this pandemic dead in its tracks, we are looking at possibly the worst surge yet. Our elected leaders and public health officials need to step up to the severity of this moment.
Two final points. First, it’s been all too easy to lose track of a simple but crucial point — in a very real way, those who have been misinformed about the nature of the coronavirus and the vaccines are victims of immoral propaganda efforts by unscrupulous individuals and actors. We should be eager to see the state and local governments act to protect our fellow Oregonians who have been misinformed. Second, those of us who believe in science and common sense need to keep foregrounding the basic fact that people should wear masks and get vaccinated not simply to protect themselves, but to make sure they don’t pass it on to others. This is a huge blind spot in the mentality of many who refuse to take the coronavirus seriously, and I believe remains the Achilles heel of such resistance. It is a failure of common decency and of basic social solidarity, and while it may be counterproductive to aim such a harsh critique at ordinary individuals, it can effectively be leveled at elected officials who refuse to take stronger actions to shut down the pandemic. This is not just a question of individual freedom to defy health guidelines; it is also a question of whether such individuals should have the right to threaten the health, and yes, the basic freedom to health, of everyone else — whether it’s vaccinated people who are at risk of breakthrough infections, those more vulnerable to the coronavirus due to age or infirmity, or those unable to receive the vaccine due to underlying medical conditions, not to mention younger children for whom the vaccine has not yet been approved. It may be counterproductive to try to shame ordinary Oregonians into more responsible behavior, but it’s absolutely fine to shame those in positions of public power who continue to enable mass death and economic destruction. These officials betray their voters, their state, and their country.