Board of Health accepts protocol

The Sanders County Board of Health last week voted to accept a Communicable Disease Surveillance Protocol, a document that has taken nearly a year to revise and adopt.

Commissioner Tony Cox started last week’s Board of Health meeting by stating that the commissioners had heard the concerns raised by the public. They took suggestions and formed a committee to review the protocol. County Health Officer Ron Petrie said that they heard three main criticisms of the document. The first was that it violated constitutional rights. The second, he said, was that the document was trash and the county should get rid of it. The third was that people objected to the authority the protocol gave the health officer. Petrie said that in regard to constitutional rights being violated, no comments to the board of health sent case law or Supreme Court decisions as evidence.

Petrie went on to explain to the more than 20 community members at last week’s meeting that the county health board has an obligation to protect the rights of the people, including “the negative right to not have your health taken away by the actions of others.”

Cox said that revising the protocol and coming up with a solution was a balance. Community member Bruce Hunn, who worked with the county to address concerns about the document, agreed that it was a balance. “There’s a loss of confidence we’ve seen in health organizations at a national level. But I have the highest respect for the team members we worked with.” Hunn said he still had one criticism – that the document was too big. “In my opinion it could be 11 or 12 pages. We’re not going to satisfy everyone, but we’re here to find a resolution.”

Several community members commented during the meeting. They addressed specific wording in the document and who was accountable if something went wrong with the document. “Just because it’s lawful doesn’t mean it’s right,” said Gunner Junge of Thompson Falls.

“All of us understand the excesses of the federal government during COVID,” Petrie said, “but it wasn’t from this document. That was from the Interstate Commerce Clause.” He added that the protocol revisions add protections against forced vaccinations. “We’ve tried to distance ourselves from COVID-19 in this process,” he said later in the meeting.

Board of Health member Bina Eggensperger said that they received over 30 written comments in response to the protocol, and read through each one of them. “Having a good plan in place is important. This document puts decisions in medical hands, not political hands.” In response to holding the health board accountable, Eggensperger said that there are “lots of eyes on us” to do the right thing, referencing the number of people in attendance and the media coverage of the protocol revisions.

Commissioner Dan Rowan said that Hunn had an important voice in the process of revising the protocol as far as civil liberties and due process.

The Board of Health unanimously voted to accept the protocol. “This whole thing has caused a lot of tension in the community and I hope people can move past this,” Commissioner Cox stated.