Lewis County Mayors Call to Lift Restrictions Despite Public Health Pleas

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Tempers flared at a mayors’ meeting held by Lewis County commissioners Friday. Despite multiple outbreaks, the recent announcement of the county’s highest weekly total of new COVID-19 cases, and health officials’ pleas just days prior to take pandemic restrictions seriously, some mayors pushed back, calling for restrictions to be lifted. 

“Even when everyone’s wanting to blast out these cases every day, I think that we need to start moving to normal,” Centralia Mayor Sue Luond said. “Irregardless of all of these COVID cases … we need to move forward and just stop wallowing in it.”

Lewis County is one of three counties in Western Washington that is still in the red due to its high rate of new cases over the past two weeks, according to the state’s risk assessment dashboard. The county announced a fifth death on Friday. Nationwide, the virus has killed more than 200,000 people, and may become the nation’s third leading cause of death this year, according to news reports. 

At the meeting, most mayors attended via Zoom. Winlock Mayor Brandon Svenson was the only in-person attendee to defy health recommendations by not wearing a mask. Svenson said his decision to not wear a mask is a personal choice. 

“I just don’t feel it’s necessary,” he told The Chronicle. “I know lots of people who wear them and get migraines, and they’ve actually actually gotten sore throats and medical issues from wearing one.”

According to the Cleveland Clinic, individuals are at risk of getting sore throats if they don’t regularly wash their mask.

At six months into the pandemic, Svenson said it feels like it’s “coming to a head.” At Friday’s meeting, Svenson prefaced his comments on COVID-19 restrictions by saying “I’m probably going to open a can of worms.”

In voicing frustrations to The Chronicle, Svenson said those sick with COVID-19 “should already be staying home anyway, are largely retired anyway” and “are kind of out of the mix.” He also incorrectly stated that all the county’s new cases are attributed to outbreaks in congregate care settings. 

“The recent numbers, they all came out of Prestige,” he said. “Whoever is in charge of infection control over there is fired in my mind.”

The statement represents a misconception that public health officials are actively trying to break down. Last week, Public Health and Social Services Director J.P. Anderson told county officials that less than half of the county’s new cases were included in congregate care outbreaks, saying it needs to be “crystal clear” that the county is seeing an increase of infections both in and out of those facilities. 



Svenson listed mortality statistics from 2011, comparing the numbers to the single-digit COVID-19 deaths the county has seen. 

“What are we doing for heart disease at 261? What are we doing for cancer at 194?” he said.

He also asked why restrictions are being enforced for COVID-19 if restrictions weren’t enforced for H1N1, a pandemic that, in total, killed about one-seventeenth as many people as the coronavirus has killed in the United States so far.

The frustration was evident from both Svenson and Luond as well as the Lewis county Commissioners, who have been supportive of schools reopening across the county, contradicting recommendations from the state.

“You’re in good company with the issues you’re bringing up,” Commissioner Edna Fund told Svenson. “The whole state of Washington is feeling what you just said.”

In arguing for loosened restrictions, Mayor Luond also made a plea to keep Centralia’s annual Lighted Tractor Parade in the city’s downtown, rather than moving it to the fairgrounds. Last month, after getting approval to open the fairgrounds for some social-distanced events, Fair and Events Manager Tamara Hayes said she hoped to move the event there, turning it into a pandemic-friendly drive-through event. 

“Everyone seems real anxious to move it from downtown Centralia. I’m not anxious to see that happen,” Luond said. “Please keep that tractor parade where it originated … that’s where it was created, that’s where it needs to stay.”

Although Luond said the parade could be altered in Centralia to adhere to health guidelines, she also said it may be able to be held normally, without restrictions, “because it isn’t until December.”