Wednesday, October 6, 2021
A4
OPINION
VOICE of the CHIEFTAIN
Issues remain
after deadline
pushed back
T
he news that more than half of
Oregon’s state employees will
get an extra six weeks to get
inoculated against COVID-19 was wel-
come, but the question of what happens
after the deadline remains unanswered.
Gov. Kate Brown pushed back the
earlier October deadline and set Nov. 30
as the final date state employees must be
vaccinated. The decision affects more
than 20,000 workers.
Yet many people — including many
in the health care industry — have no
intention of getting vaccinated for a vari-
ety of reasons, and that could mean the
state will face a new crisis on top of an
already spiraling COVID-19 surge.
That we’ve reached this point in what
is a once-a-century pandemic is beyond
troubling. It is sad.
Yet, here we are. If neither side
budges — and so far, the governor hasn’t
indicated she plans to back down — then
the small towns scattered across Eastern
Oregon will encounter a new medical
emergency because there will be fewer
qualified people to attend to those with
the virus and people injured or in need of
serious care.
In a sense, the area’s hospitals are
caught in the middle — a not uncommon
situation since the pandemic began — as
they must comply with the state mandate
but, at the same time, need qualified peo-
ple to operate effectively.
Ultimately, much of the final con-
sequence of this situation is out of the
hands of residents of the region. We can
sympathize with health care workers, or
we can feel they should all follow the
governor’s mandate but, in the end, it
will be an individual decision thousands
of workers have to make.
So, the real question is what measures
and fail-safes are elected leaders across
the region proposing to overcome a sud-
den loss of thousands of qualified work-
ers? What will be the state’s role if the
region faces a mass exodus of health
care workers? Have local elected lead-
ers reached out to state leaders about the
issue? If so, what plan is in the works?
We can’t afford to wait around and
see who blinks first. We need actionable
plans in case we lose a great number of
workers.
LETTERS to the EDITOR
GOP is succeeding where
bin Laden failed
While I appreciate the many com-
pelling national and local stories about
the impact of the 9/11 attacks, including
those that appeared in the Chieftain, the
somber truth of this anniversary has been
largely left out of the coverage: Osama
bin Laden won.
The attacks on 9/11 were merely the
detonating charge that got us to blow
up our own country and violate what
remained of its nobler values — to
embrace torture, end due process for cer-
tain groups, establish a surveillance state,
mire ourselves in bloody and expen-
sive Sisyphean efforts at regime change
abroad, refuse to recognize and address
the ongoing climate apocalypse and
embrace ventilators over masks in the
current pandemic.
Now, one of our major political par-
ties is in thrall to an aspiring autocrat and
working feverishly to cripple and nullify
voting. What bin Laden could not achieve
— the end of America as a free, prosper-
ous and democratic nation — the GOP is
pursuing with an untrammeled passion. It
has been a grim trajectory from the flam-
ing towers to our own self-immolation.
Stephen Ducat
Joseph
Analyzing vaccine ‘pro’ vs.
‘con’ letters
The Chieftain published a series of
Opinion letters arguing the “pros” and
“cons” of COVID preventative measures.
The “pro” camp presented objec-
tive, science-based facts showing vacci-
nation and masking to be safe and effec-
tive against COVID hospitalizations and
death, consistent with conclusions of
infectious disease experts and our coun-
ty’s physicians.
The “con” perspective challenged the
safety and effectiveness of these measures
and questioned the ethics of vaccinating
children. This opinion was not substan-
tiated by credible scientific research or
endorsed by public health authorities.
Vaccinated county residents (65%)
obviously side with the “pro” science
camp. They chose wisely since the unvac-
cinated account for the overwhelm-
ing majority of our local hospitalized
COVID-sick patients.
The debate has now turned ideologi-
cal. The “con” camp argues for personal
choice to refuse vaccination and masking
mandates. Implied is liberty to also infect
others, overcrowd hospital beds and pass
onto taxpayers costs to treat preventable
illness. Our county’s 12 COVID deaths
and 602 diagnosed cases argues against
the “con” camp libertarian position.
I’ll weigh into the ideological debate
as a clinician who took care of com-
bat-wounded veterans for 31 years. Those
veterans courageously stepped up to take
a bullet in the name of patriotism, defined
EDITORIALS: Unsigned editorials are the
opinion of the Wallowa County Chieftain
editorial board. Other columns, letters and
cartoons on this page express the opinions
of the authors and not necessarily that of the
Wallowa County Chieftain.
LETTERS: The Wallowa County Chieftain
welcomes original letters of 400 words or less
on public issues and public policies for publi-
cation in the newspaper and on our website.
The newspaper reserves the right to withhold
letters that address concerns about individual
services and products or letters that infringe
on the rights of private citizens. Letters must
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of residence and a daytime phone number.
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Unsigned letters will not be published.
SEND LETTERS TO: editor@wallowa.com, or
via mail to Wallowa County Chieftain, 209 NW
1st St. Enterprise, OR 97828
as “devotion to and vigorous support of
one’s country.”
Libertarians who won’t brave a needle
stick and inconvenience of a mask might
consider walking in the footsteps of those
who secured their liberty through sac-
rifice, while reflecting on JFK’s imper-
ative to “ask what you can do for your
country.”
Miles McFall
Joseph
Comparison between
medical choice and drunk
driving ‘absurd’
There is a fundamental error with the
assertion that “the right to infect” others
is not a protected liberty.
A recent contributor astutely pointed
out that drunk driving is prohibited
because it poses a risk to other citizens
and concluded that, in a similar way,
refusing to wear a mask or vaccinate
presents a threat to public health. While
this argument may seem reasonable at
first blush, it is based on the presupposi-
tion that an unmasked/unvaccinated per-
son poses a real (as opposed to theoreti-
cal) risk to others.
Fortunately, an uninfected person
poses zero risk of coronavirus trans-
mission; only someone with an active
COVID infection poses a risk of spread-
ing the virus to others. Of note, an August
report from the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention showed nearly
three-quarters of new COVID cases aris-
ing from large gatherings in a Massachu-
setts town occurred in vaccinated people.
The suggestion that unvaccinated people
are a legitimate threat to public health is
deeply concerning to anyone who values
the rule of law.
Surprisingly, only 35 states have laws
criminalizing HIV exposure (Oregon is
not one of them). State laws relating to
communicable diseases vary in strict-
ness, but according to Harvard Law, “…
in order to establish a cause of action
for a negligent conduct, a plaintiff must
establish that (1) the defendant owes him
or her a duty; (2) there was a breach of
that duty; (3) there is a causal connec-
tion between the defendant’s conduct and
the harm incurred to the plaintiff; and (4)
damages to the plaintiff.” Prosecutors
may be able to charge assault and bat-
tery or criminal negligence, but only if
the burden of proof is satisfied. As it turns
out, the “right to infect others” may actu-
ally be protected if there is insufficient
evidence.
An argument that equates a personal
medical decision with running over
pedestrians in a crosswalk is absurd and
completely ignores the structure and func-
tion of the American justice system. We
should not be accusing people of crimes
just because we feel their actions threaten
our current way of life. When we leave
legal matters in the hands of the mob, we
Wallowa County’s Newspaper Since 1884
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VOLUME 134
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Phone: 541-426-4567 • Fax: 541-426-3921
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Reproduction without permission is prohibited.
General Manager, Karrine Brogoitti, kbrogoitti@eomediagroup.com
Editor, Ronald Bond, rbond@wallowa.com
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end up lynching people based not on evi-
dence of a crime committed, but on our
own ignorance and bigotry.
The argument that unvaccinated peo-
ple are selfishly (and criminally) putting
others at risk makes an appeal to emotion,
but it lacks legal and evidential support.
Rebecca Patton
Enterprise
Time to embrace vaccines
and masks
This summer marks 50 years for me in
Wallowa County. I came to spend a year
— and I stayed. I stayed because the land
is wonderful. I stayed because of peo-
ple. In the 50 years countless tragedies
— fires, accidents and diseases — have
hit Wallowa County families. And again
and again, neighbors, friends and strang-
ers have stepped up to comfort and help
get people and families through hard
times. We haven’t erased bad things, but
we have dealt with them honestly and
selflessly. We’ve not asked about reli-
gion or politics, wealth or which end of
the county the afflicted are from. We just
help.
And now we have a crisis. Over 600 of
us have had or have the coronavirus and
12 have died as of Oct. 4, according to
the Oregon Health Authority. We’re get-
ting 5-10 new cases each day, and our
hospital is operating on the edge. Cases in
Idaho, with one of the lowest vaccination
rates in the country, are exploding. Uma-
tilla and Union counties ditto. We can-
not send serious COVID patients — or
serious patients of any kind — to nearby
hospitals.
There is fear that our hospital and
assisted living center will lose staff with
the vaccination mandate. The Soropti-
mists and Rotary are rounding up volun-
teers to work at assisted living.
Our friends, neighbors and relatives
are in the hospital and nursing home right
now. I am 78 and healthy — but I’m at
risk. A good many of my friends and
neighbors are at risk due to age, asthma,
weak hearts or lungs, diabetes, etc.
I am asking all of you to put aside pol-
itics and religion, vitamins and health
regimes and embrace vaccinations and
masks. If “mandates” bother you, remem-
ber that you complied with the state to get
your driver’s license, to go to school until
you were 16, and to go into the military
when called.
Your neighbor’s house is on fire and
we’re all the volunteer fire department. I
am not asking you to change your polit-
ical or religious affiliation, or to donate
blood or a kidney (which many of you
have already done). Just a shot in the arm
— yes, sometimes painful for a day or
two, but overwhelmingly effective — and
a mask on the face (when you have time,
I’ll share my story of how a mask kept
me safe from COVID).
Rich Wandschneider
Joseph
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