Lewis County employees will not be required to adhere to a future mask mandate should the state decide to implement one.
“Some might say that ‘this means nothing,’” Commissioner Sean Swope said Tuesday. “But they did have us sign a document, a mask mandate policy, from the county level and we had to vote on that as well. But I want us to understand that this board recognizes that we have to be in control of our own health decisions.”
The Lewis County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday unanimously adopted a preemptive resolution that states that the county “affirms the right of its citizens to make personal choices regarding the use of masks and face coverings, without a mandate imposed.”
Swope, who brought the resolution, said it would apply to county employees. Private businesses could still implement masking requirements.
“I’m always going to fall on defending freedom and liberty, absolutely, 100%,” Commissioner Scott Brummer said. “And I’m in hopes that we learn from the mistakes that were made during COVID, and that we don’t repeat them.”
A mask mandate for most indoor facilities, including restaurants and gyms, was lifted on March 12, 2022. The state’s masking mandate for health care, long-term care and correctional facilities for people over the age of 5 was lifted on April 3, 2023.
“The era of paternalistic medicine is over,” Commissioner Lindsey Pollock said. “And what folks have to understand is that, if we’re going to do anything, it has to be approved consent.”
During the meeting, Swope again said he had not heard from a state or federal agency that another mandate was under consideration. Last week, a spokesperson for the Washington Department of Health reiterated that masks are recommended in certain instances.
“I think it’s definitely preemptive, and when you start listening to some of the things that are coming from people like (Dr.) Fauci, and some of the other people who are getting the vaccine and getting the new vaccine … and the talk, it is preemptive,” Swope said. “I think when our constituents start asking questions, I want to send a loud and strong message that this is where we stand and this is where we want to go.”
During the meeting, Swope said he had heard from residents impacted by previous vaccine and mask requirements.
“These policies were the cause of personal tragedies — a single mom nurse found herself needing to relocate to preserve her livelihood, a firefighter had to alter his career path drastically to safeguard his family’s home, among countless other heart-wrenching narrative,” he wrote in an op-ed published in The Chronicle Tuesday in which he encouraged support for the ban.
Swope reiterated Tuesday that pandemic-era requirements caused undue hardships for Lewis County residents. Swope clarified Tuesday the residents moved because of a vaccine requirement, not a mask mandate.
“The mask mandate, I know that from a personal level working here, what that did and how it created divisions within our own county government people,” Swope said. “I thought it was a terrible tool that they used to separate and segregate people.”
A COVID-19 vaccine requirement for federal employees and contractors and state employees was lifted on May 11.
After several audience members last week asked the county to go further and institute a preemptive ban on vaccine requirements for county employees, Swope said the commissioners could consider such a resolution.
“I felt that last time that, not only did we have a mask mandate, and we used it as a politically dividing tool where we segregated those who were vaccinated and those who were unvaccinated,” Swope said. “And it’s hard to tell if you got vaccinated, but they wanted to use the mask to show who did get vaccinated and who did not get vaccinated. And they used it, in my mind, as a weapon.”
