Questions unasked. Statements and predictions taken at face value. Vague data, ambiguities, and contradictions unaddressed.
Whatever happened to “Question Authority”?
Jefferson County Public Health Officer Dr. Thomas Locke has a huge responsibility and huge powers due to the Governor’s declaration of emergency.
Sure, it is up to the Board of Health to formally approve his recommendations. The Board of County Commissioners has the final vote, as well. But practically speaking, Dr. Thomas Locke, an unelected bureaucrat, is The Decider. His decides whose job is “high” or “low value,” whether it is “high” or “low risk,” and, whether some families should see their breadwinner lose her job or whether a small business will be pushed closer to failure because he does not want them to reopen.
What if he’s wrong?
One thing we’ve noticed from watching the virtual meetings: nobody asks him any hard questions. No, “But doctor, what about….” or “What you told us last week seems to have changed. Did you miss something?”
Considering how important is his every word for the fate and fortunes of thousands of people, and the fact he is, after all, unelected, the public deserves at least a few hard questions. Because, you know, he could just be wrong.
So, since our “electeds” and our “appointeds” can’t seem to ask any substantive questions, we will.
TOURISTS ARE GOING TO KILL US ALL
“Dr. Locke, what about Kitsap County?”
“What do you mean, what about Kitsap County?”
“And Thurston and Chelan, doctor?“
Dr. Locke has repeatedly said we cannot risk attracting tourists out of fear they will bring contagion that Jefferson County has avoided. We’ve had only 30 COVID diagnoses and no deaths.
His “early open” list excludes all businesses he believes could attract tourists. That is a lot of businesses. It includes all retail that is not already somehow fitted into the arbitrary “essential” category. He also wants to prohibit many businesses from serving all but “locals.” A business that must stay closed may be selling the same kinds of things as an “essential,” but because Dr. Locke thinks the closed businesses, but not the open businesses, will draw tourists like fruit flies to overripe melon, they have to continue to slide towards going out of business permanently.
But Kitsap County. But Thurston, but Chelan.
These counties are right next door to King, Pierce and Snohomish Counties, which account for the majority of COVID diagnoses and deaths. Tens of thousands of people go back and forth between all these counties every day. Commuters cross on ferries or head to work on I-5. On weekends, Seattlites have been heading east into Chelan County since the beginning of the lock down.
These counties already experience far more interaction than Jefferson County would by fully reopening, especially with all our major tourist events cancelled for the rest of the year. The sheer numbers of daily county-border-crossers swamps the numbers of day tourists we could expect to wander Water Street or take in Fort Worden’s beach on a sunny day.
Neither Kitsap, Thurston nor Chelan county has seen any spike in COVID diagnoses or deaths.
Kitsap County has 270,000 people with a mere 159 cases, most of which were resolved without medical intervention, as is the case everywhere. That gives it an incidence of .06%, lower than Jefferson County’s infection rate of .09%. Only one COVID related death, that of a very elderly woman with debilitating health issues, occurred in Kitsap County. (The death of a police officer, charged by the media to the coronavirus, has not definitely been connected to COVID).
Thurston County, with 288,000 people has seen only 123 cases and 1 death, a man in his 80s, about whom we know nothing else. That gives Thurston County a COVID incidence of only .04%, again less than ours.
Chelan County, with a population of 78,000, has seen a higher incidence with its 176 cases, or .22%, but that is a very small rate. It may be due to the fact that Wenatchee serves as a regional medical center and cases and deaths from other counties have been credited to Chelan County when patients are brought there. Still, as a regional medical hub, Chelan County reports only 6 deaths.
The experience of these counties does not support Dr. Locke’s scary tourist scenario. Besides, tourists have been visiting us the whole time they were supposed to be locked inside their Seattle apartments. They have been on Water Street, at our parks, stopping off for food, gas and supplies on their way west.
“Doctor, if we truly want to insulate ourselves, shouldn’t we prohibit our own residents from going to Seattle? Why worry about tourists when we’ve got our own folks wandering off the rez?”
Ignored in all of Dr. Locke’s presentations to the Board of Health, is the fact that Jefferson County residents in significant numbers have been going back and forth from Snohomish, King and Pierce counties during the lock down. While waiting for the Bainbridge ferry, I struck up a conversation with the man in a pickup behind me. A Port Townsend resident, he has regularly been traveling to Seattle on business and meeting with clients there, and getting his meals and doing a little shopping in town when he could. In front of me two men driving a delivery truck for a Port Hadlock business were making another regular run to customers in Seattle. I overheard another person in line, also from Port Townsend, on her phone telling someone she’d missed the earlier ferry and would be there as soon as she could and where to meet her outside the airport terminal. I was heading into Seattle that day for medical care, as scores of other Jefferson County residents have done over the past two months.
And Jefferson County residents for the past two months by the hundreds, maybe thousands, have been travelling out of county to shop in Big Box stores.
The prophylaxis around Jefferson County has never been impermeable. And just like Kitsap, Chelan and Thurston counties we haven’t been walloped by the Wuhan virus.
A few more counties to mention.
Across the Columbia River from Portland and its populous suburbs lie Wakiakum and Skamania counties. They are fully in Phase 2 of the Governor’s reopen plan, with no restrictions on who may come to their county and enter their stores and businesses. Wakiakum has only 4 diagnoses, no deaths. Skamania has 3 cases, no deaths. Further east, it has been reported that on the first weekend after several rural counties there entered Phase 2 they were inundated with people from Spokane taking advantage of the good weather to enjoy parks, hiking trails, boating and fishing. Columbia County still has only 3 cases, no deaths. Garfield right next door and a stone’s throw from Spokane, has yet to report a single COVID diagnosis.
RECKLESSLY CONDEMNING “RECKLESS” REOPENINGS
Dr. Locke has criticized Georgia for opening so fully and so quickly. He called that governor’s actions “reckless.”
Yet, Georgia is seeing hospitalizations drop. Its per capita death rate is a fraction of New York’s. More than a month into its “reckless” early open Georgia continues to turn the corner for the better. And its economy is picking up steam, its people are returning to work, Atlanta’s airport is getting busy, its hospitals are making money again instead of bleeding red ink.
Dr. Locke did not throw Florida, tourist mecca supreme, into his “reckless” category. They also opened a month ago. The media has dropped their “human sacrifice” hair-on-fire reporting as Florida is doing just fine and its Governor now regularly blasts the unfounded, reckless precictions of doom fired at him when he announced reopening beaches and just about everything else.
And there is Colorado, led by a Democratic Governor, where cooped up Denver residents fled to the mountains as soon as their stay-at-home chains were broken. They’re doing just fine.
South Dakota never closed at all–“recklessly,” no doubt–and has never experienced any of the nightmarish predictions lobbed its way.
More states opened robustly and very early in comparison to Washington. On today’s CNN’s “State of the Union,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said there has not been a spike in cases in reopened states. Rather, the notable increases have occurred in states that remain locked down, though, thankfully, in “closed, very localized situations.”
QUESTION AUTHORITY–SOMEONE, ANYONE, PLEASE!
So, yeah, maybe Dr. Locke has some things very wrong. Maybe his fears are overblown and unfounded and Jefferson County’s economy is paying the price and we’d do better to just open everything up now and stop the destruction. There is certainly a lot to contradict his alarmism about tourists, in data from near and far.
I don’t know if we are the typical Port Townsend family of four. We own a house here. We have a business here. Our kids go to the public schools, participate in sports. We are involved with Jefferson County 4H and the Girls Boat Project. We did all those things and more until the third week in March when Governor Inslee declared a state of emergency, sent everyone home, and everything stopped.
It was a busy time. We ceased operations at our successful business of twenty years that was now deemed non-essential. Our entire staff, six long-term employees, were put on standby effective immediately. All but unavoidable expenses were cut, including our paychecks, in an effort to keep the business on life support until…when? Nobody was saying for sure. We heard a couple of weeks, a couple of months, a couple of years.
I spent the first week contacting county, state, and federal representatives letting them know about the serious damage being done to small business in Jefferson County. I was also searching for a letter or waiver that would allow us to continue running a business that had always been essential to my family. Without the employees we now couldn’t afford, we could operate within Center for Disease Control, Wuhan Covid Virus protocols. The few orders still trickling in came via Internet or phone. They were processed by one person, my wife, the owner, at our office, and then shipped via USPS or UPS. All other details were managed remotely, including evenings with the family gathered around the kitchen table, sorting, bagging and labeling product.
When I heard back from the governor, it was a form email stating he was too busy to reply. When I heard back from the few local and state representatives that did reply, they told me the governor wasn’t returning their phone calls. They suggested we, “Do what we need to do”
At home we went through the same process, all spending cut except food, and utilities. We applied to our bank for forbearance on our mortgage, this put off monthly payments for six months. We did whatever could be done, to stretch what we had, for a long as possible with the plan that if we could keep the business afloat, we might be able to earn an income again somewhere down the road.
I became the person who went out for groceries once a week. My wife and two daughters stayed home. We had no contact with or physical proximity to anyone other than to say “hello” to friends and neighbors who might be out in their yards or passing by while walking around town.
I am not a teacher. I struggled with schooling for my sixteen and thirteen year old daughters. I had my doubts regarding the switch to online schooling. The sudden closure seemed to leave the teachers in the unenviable position of figuring out how to do this on their own. It seems that the bugs are being worked out. My kids do their assigned work such as it is, and have adapted effortlessly to Internet instruction and Zoom meetings. Regardless, they miss the interaction of a classroom. Their teachers tell us the same.
As a family we discuss this wild experience every day. We debate the economic shut down. We debate the latest news regarding the virus. We debate the mask/no mask protocol, and are pretty sure the people driving their cars around town solo with masks on and windows rolled up will be just fine after all this is over. We debate why the young and healthy who are not affected by the virus aren’t allowed to re-start an economy while the older folks and others who are at risk stay at home. Most sadly we debate the fate of our town as event after event is cancelled and a business like Aldrich’s closes. We ponder who, or what, will be lost next. We are learning not to be surprised.
We exercise as a family just about every day, usually in the evening, often walking along Water Street. Our commercial district is a ghost town. The only thing missing are tumbleweeds.
As I walk the empty streets I think about the chatter on social media that Port Townsend shouldn’t be in a hurry to re-open. The idea being if everyone–owners, employees, landlords–are doing okay with government grants and unemployment, then we should take our time. As a family invested in the vitality of this place, we hope this isn’t true.
Yes, we all bought in on some level to the stay-at-home concept so as not to overload our health care system. Historic precedents were provided. Yet even during the Spanish Flu of 1918, with the exceptions of theaters and dance halls, businesses were not forced to close.
I was impressed, to say the least, by the government’s ability to arbitrarily shut whole sectors of our economy in an instant. I am less impressed, and I will admit downright befuddled, when this same government, all the way down to local city councils, doesn’t seem to have the appetite or the ability to get it back up and running.
For my family the path to our recovery will be paved by a strong economy. For the sake of all families in this town, present and future, we have to find a way to keep all businesses open while we deal with this pandemic, or the next one. It has been my experience over the last few weeks that government can’t do this for us. Instead, we have to show government we can do it for ourselves. The longer we wait, the higher the price to be paid by future generations.
“Are you going to Silverdale or Sequim? If you go to Silverdale you can hit Lowe’s. Then swing by Central Market in Poulsbo. I’ve got a list.”
One of the great injustices of Governor Inslee’s lock down order is that he has bludgeoned small retail at the same time he has redirected consumer dollars to the Big Box stores.
“Shop locally” makes a great bumper sticker. It should have been a battle cry for city leaders. They should have been champions for the entrepreneurs that put it all on the line to bring charm and a personal touch to our community.
Those leaders have been sleep walking through this crisis. As we’ve reported about City Council meetings, they have discussed absolutely NOTHING about how city government can go to bat for our businesseses and the people those businesses employ. You get that? They haven’t even talked about helping (we watch the virtual meetings so you don’t have to).
In a town that depends so much on tourism, probably the industry that will lag the most in any recovery, you’d think its leaders would have been working overtime to find some way to stem the bleeding for every business that can be helped.
Now it might be county leaders turning their backs on small retail.
Retail is open in eight counties that qualified for “early open” under the Governor’s Phase 2. Jefferson County is not among them, though we were on the Governor’s initial list that got the go-ahead. Some counties delivered their application to the Governor in just 24 hours; our leaders are running out the clock with meeting after meeting. With all the foot dragging, another COVID case popped up and went away just as quickly. But county leaders now worry it disqualifies us from the “early open” because we weren’t supposed to have a single new case. It is an unrealistic requirement, but so are many other of Governor Inslee’s ever-shifting targets.
With fingers crossed hoping we might still be considered for maybe a couple days advance move into Phase 2, Public Health Officer Dr. Thomas Locke on Tuesday, 5/12/2020, released his list of businesses that should be opened now (and, in the opinion of many, open last week, and the week before that and the week before that…) Many are no-brainers. The Governor has said existing construction could resume, but held back on new construction, which never made any sense. Locke says all construction can resume. In addition he concludes that people in maritime manufacturing and fabrication shops can get back to work, as can office businesses, hair and nail salons, repair businesses, pet grooming, nannies and house cleaners.
Locke has intentionally left some things off his list and advises against them reopening. Those businesses are mostly tourist related. But for some reason he is withholding approval for our retail businesses to reopen. He lumps all retail into the “tourist-attracting” category, without distinction. Like Inslee, he takes a bludgeon to anything smaller than a Walmart.
“Trader Joe’s is open, darling. Get us something special for dinner.”
The County Board of Health will vote on May 21 to accept, reject, expand or contract Dr. Locke’s recommendations. The next day, the Board of County Commissioners will vote the BOH’s resolution up or down, no changes permitted in the process decreed by the Governor.
There has to be a way to let our small retailers turn the lights back on and start making some money. We have to stop exporting not only consumer spending, but also tax dollars. While local leaders may be callous about the pain to the private economy, they do feel the pain of plummeting tax revenue from retail sales. The county administrator has concluded that salary cuts for “the electeds” will be necessary. I’m thinking along the lines of 50% cuts for county commissioners retroactive to the date of the Governor’s emergency decree and continuing through 2021, but that’s for another op ed.
Back to why we must and can reopen all retail. Consider Quimper Mercantile, the largest small retailer downtown. We do not want an empty, dark shell as the anchor store at the entrance to Port Townsend’s historic district, you know, a taste of Detroit urban decay dished up with salt air and sea gulls staining an abandoned building.
Quimper Mercantile already has an established list of in-county customers which they should be allowed to serve. If your name is in their database, you get the locals-only discount.
Locke would allow barbers, stylists and manicurists to reopen if they serve only locals. Quimper Mercantile should be allowed to do the same. You could say they are “shovel ready.” It should be their call.
Other retailers could open under Locke’s overtly discriminatory restrictions. They better get open soon. Very few of these stores have the ability to stay closed much longer with a realistic hope of ever reopening and turning a profit again. It is the rare small retail operation that has a pile of cash to carry them through drought and famine, and many are already saddled with a heavy debt load.
“Last call, sugar. What else do you want from Silverdale?”
Better yet, just let our stores sell to everyone. There are no restrictions on the Big Box Boys limiting them to serving locals. Why, they even sell all kinds of stuff to people from Jefferson County.
We are triaging the young and healthy for the sake of the elderly and already sick. We are not all in this together. It is families and people who need to work paying the cost in terms of lost jobs, crushed hopes and lost homes so old people can feel safe.
We are destroying our economy, our society and future generations to fight an old people’s disease that doesn’t even hit all old people, just mostly those who spent decades smoking, overeating, not taking care of themselves or, sadly, just falling apart as we all do near the end of our race.
This is nuts. It is the exact opposite of what rational societies do.
THE NURSING HOME VIRUS
We could rename COVID-19 the “nursing home virus.” Nearly two-thirds of its fatalities in this state have occurred in nursing homes or other senior facilities. In King County, which has been driving most policy decisions, 70% of COVID fatalities were in skilled nursing facilities. Across the nation, it is nursing home deaths that account for the substantial majority of COVID deaths.
Outside nursing homes, COVID deaths are concentrated almost exclusively in the elderly. While those under age 60 in Washington account for 68% of the diagnoses, very few of them have died or required hospitalization. The vast majority experienced no symptoms, or symptoms serious enough to require medical intervention. Many just stayed home for two weeks.
The deaths outside nursing homes or other senior facilities are concentrated not in the elderly, but in a small demographic cohort: the elderly with serious other health issues. Brought on by unwise life choices or other causes, obesity, hypertension, weak hearts and compromised cardiovascular systems, and damaged lungs from decades of smoking or other causes made them victims to a virus that little troubles most people who are exposed to it. Healthy old people have generally not been felled by the virus. They have been strong enough to fight it off, though the fight can be grueling.
52% of COVID deaths were those over age 80. When the next cohort is added in, those above age 60, they account for 90% of all COVID deaths.
The Washington Department of Health reports that 9% of deaths were among people aged 40-59, and 1% aged 20-39. The message is clear: COVID is not a threat to those under age 60, and generally not a threat to those who are otherwise healthy.
Though the DOH does not break out the numbers, the Seattle Times’ reporting indicates that a significant number of the non-nursing home deaths may be attributable to the homeless population, well known to be plagued with serious, life-threatening health conditions before the pandemic landed.
We now know, therefore, that the severity of the pandemic is limited fairly clearly to distinct quite elderly, already sick and already maybe dying populations. COVID is not a lonely killer. Other factors were already attacking those who succumbed.
But it is the young and healthy that we have been triaging. It is their lives we have been and will continue destroying.
It is worth repeating: this is nuts. Never before in medical history has government on such a massive scale destroyed its people’s well-being to save such a limited, otherwise easily isolated and protectable population, a population that would normally be that to be triaged in favor of the healthy, the productive, the young, and those not needing massive expenditures of public health resources.
It is those who are being triaged for no good reason who are angry and leading the protests against the Governor’s arbitrary, illogical and, in many ways, corrupt lock down order.
WHAT THE ELDERLY OWE THE YOUNG
I am in that group for which young families are sacrificing their jobs and dreams. Like many of the elderly in and around Port Townsend, I don’t need to work. Ironically, while working families and sole proprietors have seen their financial stability crushed, I’ve actually been making money as the stock market has rebounded. I know I am not alone in that good fortune.
Yet young people are being forced out of jobs and careers for my benefit. How many times can I repeat it: This is nuts.
It is my responsibility to protect myself. I have a full life behind me. The finish line is up ahead (hopefully, not just a few steps ahead, but it is not so far away I can’t see it). Those who are just starting their lives, building families, building community instead of feeding off it, they deserve my sacrifice, not the other way around.
And what is that sacrifice? Wearing a mask, social distancing, washing hands and not touching my face, keeping contact surfaces clean. That little effort pales in comparison with the nightmare government is inflicting on the young for my sake.
Unfortunately, too many vocal and politically influential old people in this community do not share this attitude. They want to keep businesses closed. Too many old people who wear masks when they are alone on a beach or walking in woods are pressuring government leaders to heed their outsized fears instead of making rational decisions that put on the scales the full weight of the cost and suffering of destroying our economy.
The fearful are objecting to taking advantage of an opportunity for an early reopen of Jefferson County businesses. Though the Governor concludes that Jefferson County’s low COVID risk entitles it to move to Phase 2 in his statewide plan, local leaders, hearing and feeling the fear, have opted to let the early opportunity pass. They claim that otherwise, with Seattle only a couple hours or less away, we will draw tourists escaping cabin fever.
Fear is a liar. Very few of the businesses that could reopen under an early Phase 2 rollout would be tourist businesses. The selfish fear of the old is keeping closed new home construction, manufacturing, office businesses, in-home services, and hair and nail salons. None of these are tourist oriented businesses. (That lie also ignores the fact that real estate brokerages, such as that owned by Port Townsend’s Mayor, have never closed, though they have been attracting buyers from Seattle, California and elsewhere. Like I said, fear is a liar.)
It is time to stop triaging the young and healthy. Open Jefferson County now. Let the old protect themselves so the next generations may enjoy the same good life we did. Otherwise, many of us oldsters will be gone while those behind us are still paying the price for our fear and selfishness.
Delay and dithering rules in Jefferson County. Eight counties have already applied to enter phase 2 now, the next step in Governor Inslee’s reopening of Washington’s economy. Local officials instead have opted to add additional procedural steps not required by the Governor’s order. This will drag out deliberations until May 26 at the earliest.
That is just days before the benefits of an “early open” variance would expire and the Governor’s phase 2 is slated to be taking effect statewide anyway.
Kittatas, Columbia, Garfield, Ferry, Pend Oreille, Lincoln, Kitsap and Stevens Counties were able quickly to deliberate and approve their Public Health Officer’s and Board of Health’s proposal to move into phase 2. The first six counties, like Jefferson, were identified by Governor Inslee as among the ten counties with such low COVID risk and adequate public health preparations that they could start reopening additional businesses before the rest of the state. Businesses that could get back to work could include new home construction, home remodeling, manufacturing, retail, some restaurant operations and other services.
[UPDATE: Late Friday Governor Inslee announced that the applications for Columbia, Garfield, Ferry, Lincoln and Pend Oreille were approved.]
Kitsap and Stevens were not on the Governor’s top ten list. They are so eager to help their local businesses and workers that they submitted applications pre-emptively, making the case to the Governor that they should be permitted to enter phase 2 now because they also are low COVID risk counties.
Jefferson County officials likewise could have taken action to blunt the crushing economic blows befalling what was already a poor rural county that had an unemployment rate not only above the national average, but also above the chronically higher average black unemployment rate.
Local officials here did not convene to even discuss accepting the Governor’s invitation until nearly a week had passed. A joint on-line convocation of the Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners, the Port Townsend City Council and the Jefferson County Board of Health met last night for four hours. Such a step is not required by the Governor. The City of Port Townsend, under his order, has no role to play in applying for a variance.
Some participants in the meeting, most notably those from Port Townsend city government, wanted no part of an early reopening our economy. They won.
The decision to delay is as much a substantive policy decision as would have been approval last night of a variance application. The county’s public health officer could have submitted a simple list of businesses he believes should reopen (he said he already has some in mind). With the Board of Health convened and with a quorum, it could have approved that proposal. Instantly, the County Commission, also convened with a quorum, could have, in turn, voted approval. The variance request could have been delivered to the Governor in the morning. Such an accelerated process is likely how the other counties were able to move so quickly.
The only action by our local leaders was to schedule more meetings:
Next week, by Tuesday, the county’s public health official, Dr. Thomas Locke, will deliver the list of business activities he believes should or should not be opened. They will be ranked from most eligible to open to least, based on ease or difficulty of virus control he sees in the activity.
On Thursday, May 14, a special meeting of the Board of Health will consider and possibly vote to accept or reject Dr. Locke’s proposal, in whole or in part. If the Board of Health votes affirmatively to seek some sort of variance, that resolution will be passed onto the County Commission for action.
Before the County Commission meets, however, some sort of “stakeholders” forum will he held to receive comment from businesses and members of the public. That may take place on May 19. The procedures and participants for that forum remain to be decided, and the technical challenges such a wide-open on-line forum will present will be considerable. Regardless, it was recognized that forum can have no legal effect on the previous week’s action by the public health officer and Board of Health. This is another procedural step not required by the Governor’s order.
On May 26, assuming that the Board of Health has voted for some variance application, the Board of County Commissioners may decide to accept their variance proposal. No amendments or changes are permitted under the Governor’s order. If the Board of Health’s variance application is approved, probably on May 27 it will then be transmitted to the state for processing, review and approval, a process which apparently takes at least several days. That is based on the experience thus far of those counties that already submitted their variance applications, all of which as of this time are still pending with Inslee’s administration. [Note those approved late Friday, per the Update above].
Phase 2 for the entire state could go into effect June 1, at which time restaurants may operate at 50% capacity, hair salons and barbers may reopen, in-home domestic services may resume, retail can reopen, and office-based business can start back up. But the Governor has reserved the authority to further delay phase 2, something that would make having a variance in hand that much more valuable to the lucky county, its businesses and workers.
