Vaccination clinics continue
The Barton County Health Department will be at Expo III again this Wednesday with another drive-through COVID-19 vaccination clinic but workers will need another site when the Great Bend Farm, Ranch & Hemp Expo comes to the Expo Complex next month, April 7-9.
Asked about that during Monday’s county commission meeting, Barton County Administrator Phil Hathcock said, “We’re working with the city (of Great Bend) to find another place here in town. Once we have it firmed up we will be making an announcement.”
Hathcock also noted that Commissioner Shawn Hutchinson donated space for the Health Department to offer COVID-19 vaccinations – first doses and booster doses – at Eagle Radio’s home and garden expo held at the Great Bend Events Center over the weekend. Hutchinson’s business, Satellite Pros, had a space rented but didn’t use it.
“The Health Department used his booth and gave 119 vaccinations,” Hathcock said.
Barton County Commissioners, acting as the Board of Health, voted 3-2 Monday not to rescind the county-wide mask mandate, either immediately or on March 31. But the topic will be discussed again in one week, at the March 29 commission meeting.
Masks were not on the agenda Monday but Commissioner Kirby Krier asked Chairman Jim Daily to add the topic. At the end of that discussion and the regular business meeting, the commissioners agreed to immediately meet as the Board of Health and asked Barton County Health Director Karen Winkelman to join the discussion.
Krier’s motion in the Board of Health meeting, seconded by commissioner Shawn Hutchinson, was to rescind Resolution 2020-05, made on Nov. 24, 2020, which opted out of the Governor's Executive Order but did include a county mask mandate.
He said he would encourage people to impose their own mask mandates, if they wish, “in their individual store or their individual place of worship, or in any house or whatever, but not to have a (county) mandate.”
Citing figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Krier said the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic there were “500,000 people that died from COVID-related symptoms. I’m not sure if they died of COVID or COVID-releated symptoms. But in that same period of time CDC came out and said there were 625,000 people who had died from obesity. Now, I’m not for mandating people do exercise and have diet plans. I don’t like the word ‘mandate.’”
Commissioner Jennifer Schartz spoke next. “In light of the governor’s announcement that she is going to repeal the mask mandate at the end of the month, I think we just need to wait until that’s done, and not stir the pot, not get people excited,” she said. “I think that just keeping us in line with the state makes sense for another week and a half.”
“The mandate we have now is basically perpetual,” Krier said. “Once we pass this and repeal that motion, then I would welcome a motion by Commissioner Schartz to go until March 31. ... The commissioners need to decide what the endgame is.”
“I think I can make this real simple,” Commissioner Hutchinson said. “I don’t think that we as a governing board have any more right to require people to wear a mask than we do to tell them they can’t.” He asked for clarification about what the governor has said.
Winkelman and County Administrator Phil Hathcock weren’t sure about all of the State’s plan, including the passage of Senate Bill 40, which limits the governor’s powers. They did have answers about the number of vaccinations provided by the county. The Health Department has administered 4,065 first doses and about 2,000 second doses.
Winkelman said she has seen a reduction in the number of active cases. On Friday there were seven and she was not aware of any new ones added over the weekend.
Hathcock said the resolution the commissioners passed last November removed Barton County from the Governor’s Executive Order.
“If the governor’s mandate is still in effect, if you were to rescind our Resolution 2020-05, automatically Barton County would be, in effect, under the governor’s mask mandate," he said. A new overriding resolution could also be approved, however.
“I hate mandates," Daily said. "Mandates are one of the worst things that ever came out of government, period.”
The mask mandate might be an exception, he continued, noting the county already has a mandate of its own, rather than following the state mandate. “Based on the numbers that we saw when we put this resolution in place and the numbers that we’re continuing to see, we have a real slowdown in Barton County,” Daily said. “We’re seeing different strains of this particular virus coming around and it is such a mobile virus that who knows when it’s going to get here.”
“I’m not comfortable voting on this today because this just kind of came up before I had any time to talk to any of my constituents about it,” Schartz said. “I’ll just throw this out there, we’ve been following the mask mandate and it’s been effective. I don’t see any reason to change the course now that we are so close to the end of the pandemic.”
Krier said his constituents do not want the mandate, for the most part. "My district is overwhelmingly against it."
“I would encourage each city, if they feel like Great Bend wants the masks, then they have their city council vote on it,” Krier said. “I would actually encourage people to wear masks, but not with a mandate.”
The motion to rescind failed with commissions Krier and Hutchinson voting to end it and commissioners Schartz, Daily and Barb Esfeld voting not to rescind it.
A second motion to “dissolve the resolution (2020-05) on March 31” failed on the same lines.
Expect more discussion from the commissioners as the Board of Health on Monday, March 29.
