by Jim Scarantino | May 28, 2020 | General
NOPE By Brett Nunn
Masks. Some people are wearing them.
Some are not.
Some of the people wearing them are proclaiming that maskless people are ignorant at best, and “Killing People!” at worst.
The people not wearing masks are confounded by the people who are wearing masks, while driving in a car solo with the windows rolled up.
We all can agree that it would be ideal if people who are sick with a respiratory virus should wear a mask so as not to spread disease from exhalations of the mouth and nose. That is what masks are designed for and how they function.
All of us aren’t sick. In fact, a great majority of us are not any more sick than we were before this all started.
A few months ago we were told millions would die and our health care system would collapse.
That hasn’t happened.
What has happened is that small businesses have been decimated and 38 million people have filed for unemployment because of two months of shut downs prescribed by the people that told us millions would die and our healthcare system would collapse.
Some in the population have been paralyzed by fear and demand that we keep everything closed, especially everything that might bring in outsiders even though the Jefferson County public health officer, Dr. Thomas Locke, has stated there is no evidence of tourists spreading the virus. But never mind and, just in case, everyone should be required to wear a mask under penalty of law.
Many in the population are watching their business or their employer’s business built with blood, sweat, tears, life savings, and second mortgages, burn to the ground in the flames of political dithering, while the authorities threaten to sue them and, or, pull their business licenses if they dare to open. The last thing these people are thinking about is wearing a mask.
If you are wearing a mask and it makes you feel better, then by all means don’t stop.
If you aren’t wearing a mask, just know there are many more of us than there are of them.
[Editor’s note: Brett Nunn’s family business, essential to that family’s lifeblood, was deemed expendable by Governor Inslee. See: Life in Port Townsend for a family with a non-essential business.]
HOPE by Jim Scarantino
Pro-democracy protesters wear face masks in Hong Kong. Those masks don’t make the protestors any less courageous or determined. They don’t silence their voices one bit. Indeed, they started wearing masks last year after the totalitarian Chinese government banned face coverings. They wear their masks not only against a virus, but also against tear gas.
In the United States, we’d be more inclined to accept masks if they had not been turned into a virtue signal, a sign of surrender to conformity and the Left’s agenda to mold all into their image and thought patterns. It certainly would also have helped if the experts had not lost so much of their credibility.
And it would definitely help if our Public Health Officer stayed out of politics. Dr. Thomas Locke has hurt his credibility in this county by stepping out of the role of an objective epidemiologist to make subjective and inherently political decisions as to whose job, business, and livelihood he sees as “high” value and whose job, business, and livelihood he is willing to trash because to him it just doesn’t seem as worthy.
He is also outside his proper role when he goes off about some politicians using masks “as a wedge issue” and mocking the concerns of protestors, many of whom have had their lives destroyed while the politically privileged continue to get paychecks and large corporations escape the pain inflicted on small businesses. Not long ago he recklessly accused the state of Georgia of “recklessly” reopening, when data shows a resurging Georgia economy but steep drops in hospitalizations and deaths. He has yet to retract that accusation, nor has he acknowledged that the CDC has reduced by 13 times the transmission rate of the virus. If you want a job on MSNBC as a partisan pundit, go for it, Dr. Locke. But don’t think we don’t see you yourself using masks as a wedge issue when you spout off like that.
You told the County Commissioners you need to do a better job of messaging to break down the resistance to wearing masks. You certainly do.
Back to those Hong Kong protestors.
They are fearless. They don’t hide, they don’t accept censorship, they accept punishment for speaking out.
I would propose we follow their lead. Governor Inslee has made himself a dictator, let’s not deny that. We don’t face the same repression as the Hong Kong protestors, but we do strive for the same thing: democracy, recognition of individual rights, the rule of law. Inslee’s lock down order, his unilateral extension of his omnipotence, his arbitrary and unchecked power to declare who and what is “essential” or not, his constantly moving goal posts to further extend his unchecked powers…this is dictatorship. We should and must speak against it and push back, especially since our Governor has been so wrong and has caused so much unnecessary suffering, from destroyed jobs and businesses, to crippling the healthcare industry, to causing a tidal wave of health problems unrelated to COVID but directly caused by his vague, poorly drafted orders that prevented physicians and hospitals from providing urgent care to thousands.
Jefferson County is going to get a masking directive. It’s coming and we can’t stop it. I’ve been donning a mask for the past months as I enter stores. I understand the theory that a mask will prevent one’s “droplets” from spreading. It’s not a perfect barrier but it is still a barrier. A cloth mask will not protect me, hardly at all, I also understand that. And if a business asks customers to wear a mask, I don’t mind complying. I see that request as similar to a “no shoes, no service” rule.
I also wear a mask in sympathy with oppressed business owners. Inslee–and Locke, with the considerable powers granted Public Health Officers–can snuff out their livelihoods with a word or two. Inslee has weaponized the agency that issues and cancels business licenses to terrify their owners and employees against insubordination. If keeping them open, and getting more to turn on its lights comes at the price of me wearing a mask, that is a small price to pay to win some freedom for my fellow citizens and get Dictator Jay’s jackboot off their necks.
I don’t believe much of what Dr. Locke says anymore. I think he’s exaggerated risks, minimized the terrible costs of the lock down order, and overstepped his authority by engaging in inherently political decisions unrelated to medical science. I barely believe anything Inslee says, a long way from where I was in March when this started. Then I easily accepted losing a chance at urgent surgery in the belief that my hospital bed would be needed by someone struggling for life, a belief I have since learned was based on false information and wildly inaccurate scenarios being fed the public at the time. That was before Inslee’s own mask came off to reveal him as an incompetent and base political operative abusing his self-proclaimed powers.
I intend to use the mask requirement to exercise rather than euthanize my First Amendment rights. Some time ago when I saw this coming, I bought a Trump 2020 face mask. Its blue and red letters stand out starkly against the nice white fabric. I think it will look great as I shop in the Co-op and along Water Street when King Jay lets our stores reopen–stores that he closed while allowing big corporations (political donors, all) to operate with very few restrictions.
I’ve got other masks on order that will be even more entertaining.
If we don’t wear masks those exercising dictatorial powers are going to close, or refuse to reopen businesses and throw more people out of work. They are going to destroy entrepreneurs, the backbone of our economic freedom.
So fine, we’ll wear masks but let’s use it against our oppressors. We don’t have to face clubs and guns and fire hoses–yet. This is nothing, so let’s have some fun with it and use our masks to speak for freedom.
by Jim Scarantino | May 23, 2020 | General
The woman driving the shiny black Range Rover let go of the wheel with both hands. She flipped her middle fingers at the young mother standing at the curb with her children and a sign reading, “Let Me Work.” The woman in the Range Rover was about 60, had her windows up and was wearing disposable blue plastic gloves.
This was only one of the many instances where individuals in expensive vehicles gave the finger or shouted “F^^^ You!” through closed windows at people rallying to reopen Jefferson County and holding such offensive signs as “Every Family Counts,” “Everyone Is Essential,” and “My Family Needs To Eat, Too.”
There was that couple in a grey Mercedes, windows rolled up, of course, who pulled their masks down so they could shout obscenities. There was hate and contempt in their eyes and the way they dragged their teeth across their lower lips as they spit out the “F^^^ YOU!” left no doubt what they felt about the working class parents who wanted their jobs back.
I tossed out the idea for the Reopen Jefferson County rally because our local leaders were frittering away our county’s chance to get a jump on reopening many businesses and nobody was doing anything about it. Little did I know that the Jefferson County Washington Facebook page would pick it up and that among its more than 9,000 followers it would reach women half my age who were already engaged in other forms of activism to reopen our state economy.
One of them, Danielle Galmukoff, a Port Townsend businesswoman whose business, essential to her family’s well-being but deemed expendable by the Governor, was instrumental in forming the Reopen Washington State Facebook page. That resource has connected the unemployed, business owners ordered to shut down and bleed red ink, local officials seeing their communities ravaged not by a virus but by the Governor’s actions and medical patients denied critical care because the Governor had injected himself into the doctor-patient relationship. It has served as an organizing tool for rallies across the state. That group, in part started here, now has over 43,000 participants.
What I saw at the Reopen Jefferson County rally on May 19 was not the aging old guard of the Jefferson County GOP–a few were there, but not in any great numbers. I saw a new generation of people awakened to what happens when an unaccountable government steps out of bounds, plays favorites, makes serious errors, abuses its powers and destroys lives and livelihoods.
The Leader reported 50 people in attendance at the time the reporter arrived. The Peninsula Daily News estimated 75. I counted 95 at the peak. Not a lot, except when you consider the pressure in a tight, insular community that keeps many people from ever speaking out. We learned our support was much broader than we expected. Many businesses encouraged the rally, but said they could not be there for fear of retaliation. One business boldly donated coffee, and said we could announce their name. (Thank you, Velocity Coffee). Many people who identify as progressive, Democrat and left-leaning told the young organizers they were with them, but would not be there for fear of blow-back from the small, rather mean, but powerful and relentless gang of enforcers for the ideological and partisan Left in this town.
Those people with masks in their own cars, flipping us off, they were a small minority of passing motorists. It always surprises me when I participate in events like this, where I think I will be in a tiny, endangered minority, only to find that the act of standing up for what is right draws huge support and emboldens others to make their views known.
It was noisy at that corner by McDonald’s. The big rigs blasting loud notes, drivers standing on their horns, people rolling down their windows to shout encouragement. More than a few drivers in public agency and government vehicles gave us thumbs up.
That evening we learned that the businesses community, as they had told us over the phone, was also for reopening Jefferson County. A poll of hundreds of businesses by the Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce found that 60% wanted a quick move into the next phase of reopening. The North Hood Canal Chamber of Commerce, which covers the southern part of our county, came back with 87.5% in favor of a quick reopening.
All this time County Commissioner Kate Dean was running around telling officials from other counties and making similar statements in virtual Commission and Board of Health meetings that “the vast majority” of people here were against reopening.
She must have been listening to the older woman in the expensive Range Rover cursing a young working mom for wanting her job back.
The good news is that the county has–finally–applied for a variance from the Governor’s lock down order to allow many businesses to open earlier than the Phase 2 start date for the rest of the state. The bad news is that they spent nearly a month indulging the selfish and unscientific fears of those who don’t need to work and don’t care much about those who do.
The other bad news is that the BOH and County Commission, after dragging out the process so they could hear from “stakeholders”–translated, the businesses hammered by the Governor’s order–dismissed what they were told by those stakeholders and voted to prohibit the reopening of restaurants, in-store retail and other businesses. They have made the further reopening of Jefferson County’s devastated economy contingent on Kitsap and Clallam counties entering Phase 2, either early or with the rest of the state. We have no control over what happens in those counties. Yes, that is crazy, unwise and irresponsible, just another way of kicking the can down the road. But the people driving around with masks, disposable gloves and windows rolled up are happy.
The other good news is that maybe sometime next week, now that the county has finally ended its dithering and submitted its plea to the Governor, more of our businesses will reopen. But at most, because of the county’s delays, we might get just a couple days jump on the rest of the state, now set to move into Phase 2 anyway on June 1.
by Jim Scarantino | May 18, 2020 | General
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.
by Brett Nunn | May 14, 2020 | General
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.
by Jim Scarantino | May 11, 2020 | General
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.
by Jim Scarantino | May 8, 2020 | General
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.
