Franklin County Commission Passes Vaccine Resolution

The COVID-19 pandemic had a profound impact on our society.  It affected us on a global, national, state, and local scale.  The first cases were detected in Wuhan China in December of 2019 and it didn't take long for it to spread to neighboring European Countries.  It was first introduced to America via Sea-Tac airport.

A 35-year-old man from Snohomish County went to visit family in Wuhan.  He returned to the state January 15th of 2020 and sought medical care four days later.  He survived, but the first death in the US also came from Washington State when a man in his 50s died in Kirkland.

On February 29th Gov. Jay Inslee declared a State of Emergency related to COVID.  It would be one of the longest lasting in the nation going 975 days.  It involved closing schools, regulating movement, and eventually requiring state workers to get the COVID 19 shot or lose their jobs.

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During President Donald Trump's first term, in May of 2020, he announced "Operation Warp Speed" which was a public/private partnership to create, manufacture, and distribute COVID-19 Vaccines.  In August, President Trump authorized the purchase of 100 million doses of Moderna's creation, with an additional 100 million doses of Pfizer's answer purchased in December of 2020.  The debate over their effectiveness and safety began almost immediately.

Fast forward to October 31st, 2022.  After an estimated 1.075 million deaths nationally and 14,500 deaths in the state, Gov. Inslee ended the state of emergency.  On May 11th, the federal state of emergency ended.  Health officials continued to promote getting a COVID shot as the best way to protect against the disease.

As the debate over alternate forms of treatment vs the mRNA options raged, camps began to form and still debate the issue to this day.  Case in point...almost 2 1/2 years after the end of the state of emergency, the Franklin County Board of Commissioners had the second part of a two part presentation regarding the mRNA treatments.  According to the Washington State Dept. of Health, here are the latest COVID numbers

As you can see, the threat of COVID is less than the flu and about the same as RSV.  The board decided they needed to revisit the issue and issue a resolution that included:

• A recommendation that mRNA vaccines not be administered in Franklin County
• Removing mRNA vaccines from the child vaccine recommendations in Franklin
  County, and the state, until a number of county criteria are met.
• The county supports legislation that holds the companies that make the mRNA vaccines (or any other genetic technology) liable.
• Requests the Benton Franklin Health District reviews then does a presentation on the adverse effects of gene therapy vaccines at a public meeting
• The BFHD board to end funding for and promotion of gene therapy vaccines until the criteria laid out in the resolution is met.

A resolution is non-legislative in nature, meaning that it is meant to direct an administrative act, not create law.  In the case of a bi-county operation like BFHD, the full health district board would have to take action on the county's recommendation.

One of the more interesting parts of the resolution is removing mRNA shots from recommended vaccines for children.  The state does not make it's own recommendations, they follow the CDC recommendations as the CDC has the authority to create regulations based on laws passed by Congress.

This is the full list of vaccines required for children in Washington State  which doesn't include anything COVID related.  In fact, before the state of emergency ended, the DOH voted against making the COVID shot mandatory for kids.  They don't even mandate a flu shot.  You can watch the COVID presentation from the Franklin County Commission meeting below.