San Diego County Supervisors Right to See COVID_19 Misinformation as Public Health Threat
09/01/21
It’s rare that 250 people sign up
to speak at a local government meeting, and it’s rare for a local
government meeting to last 15 hours. But that’s what happened at a
San Diego County Board of Supervisors meeting that pit public health
against public comment Tuesday. How the meeting ended was rarer
still. In fact, it was unprecedented.
No local
government in the nation had ever declared medical misinformation a
public health crisis until the county supervisors did so on a 3-2
vote, along party lines, after a meeting that featured threats to
recall Democratic Board of Supervisors Chair Nathan Fletcher, who
drafted the resolution, and also misinformation from speakers
exercising their right to address their government officials.
The reality is COVID-19 has killed 640,000 Americans and 4.5
million people worldwide and projections are that it could kill
100,000 more Americans by year’s end. Science shows the vaccine is
safe and effective. Science shows that masks work. Weaponized
misinformation weakens the likelihood that those who aren’t yet
vaccinated will help society reach herd immunity and spawn safer
reopenings.
That Supervisors Fletcher, Terra
Lawson-Remer and Nora Vargas want the county to actively counter
misinformation, modernize public health communications, partner with
trusted messengers and develop a website to combat misinformation is
something to be celebrated. That Joel Anderson and Jim Desmond voted
against it should be rued. The county was the first local government
to take this act. It shouldn’t be the last. This isn’t an attack on
free speech. It’s an attack on a virulent strain of misinformation
that is weakening all of America as it tries to free itself from
this terrible pandemic.
Read the entire editorial here