The COVID-19 numbers are headed in the wrong direction across Upstate New York. In Oswego County, the positivity rate is above eight percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Voices of dissent began emerging Monday following a county Legislature vote on a resolution opposing the federal vaccine mandate for companies with 100 employees or more.
The measure passed by a vote of 22-3.
“A disrespect to not only our county Health Department, but it’s a disrespect to health care providers and health care workers across this county that have been fighting this disease and fighting this pandemic,” Oswego County Legislator Tom Drumm (D) said outside the county building Monday afternoon.
“This is a time to come together, take care of people and it was simply such a wrong message,” Legislature Minority Leader Marie Schaud added.
The two fell sharply in the minority of the 22-3 vote. Their message Monday was the Legislature didn’t speak with members of the medical community before the vote.
“Decades as a nurse and a nurse practitioner, I was mandated to have a measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox and many more vaccines,” said Diane Plumadore, a nurse practitioner. “The only difference is the misinformation.”
Oswego County’s vaccination rate is above half, but nowhere near the 70% mark experts have said is needed to establish herd immunity.
“Passing a resolution to oppose vaccine mandates imposed by higher authorities is detrimental to our efforts to bring this pandemic under control,” said board-certified nurse practitioner Elaine Shaben, one of a growing number to sign a petition and speak publicly. “Undermining the work that dedicated health care professionals are doing every day at the risk of their own personal safety to control a vaccine-preventable illness destabilizes our efforts and fuels mistrust.”
Shaben and others said much of the county’s situation could have been avoided and improve if doctors and nurses were taken seriously.
“This resolution makes our jobs to secure the health and safety of people in the county immeasurably more difficult,” she said.
Also speaking was Erin Berrus, who has served on the frontlines of the COVID-19 crisis at Oswego Hospital.
“I am in the emergency department and in the intensive care unit, and I’m on the COVID floor,” she said. “Our day varies, as you can even imagine, from one thing to the next.”
The medical professionals are OK with some not wanting to get vaccinated, and encourage fact-based conversation, but what about when county government says a mandate is a bad idea by a 22-3 margin?
“Not having that support behind us, not having that bit of support … We’re all in this together. You know, we’re on the frontlines with it. We’re in the ER as they come in. We’re, you know, working with the EMTs and everyone in the community. We have these tools. Why can’t we use these tools that we have now that, you know, two years ago we didn’t have?” said Berrus. “We didn’t have any of this stuff. We had to make these decisions now. We have these vaccines, then let’s get everyone together to head off the pandemic and use them.”
“I’m our health care provider,” Shaben said. “You trust me with your blood pressure, your diabetes management, you trust me with your cholesterol and your women’s health care. Why do you not trust me when I tell you to get a vaccine and you trust an internet source, instead?”
