OSWEGO – In response to the Oswego County Legislature’s October 14 resolution to oppose a vaccine mandate, members of the county’s healthcare community spoke out against the vote in a press conference yesterday, November 8.
The resolution, GC-5, proposed by Legislator David Holst discusses President Joe Biden’s “emergency temporary standard” that requires businesses with 100 or more employees to require their employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or undergo weekly COVID-19 testing in addition to New York state’s vaccine mandate for health care workers.
Out of the 26 legislators, two were absent for the vote and three voted against the resolution – Legislators Thomas Drumm, Marie Schadt, and James Karasek.
Drumm and Schadt joined Elaine Shaben FNP-BC, Diane Plumadore NPP, and Erin Berrus RN in expressing their disappointment in the outcome of the resolution.
Drumm began by saying the vote for the resolution was a slap in the face to the county’s healthcare workers who have been fighting the pandemic. He also noted that the resolution doesn’t have any legal authority.
Legislature Minority Leader Schadt echoed Drumm’s words, saying that this is about the pandemic, not about politics.
“It was simply such a wrong message, and for that, I had no part in it, but I apologize, and to the healthcare workers especially, and I hope going forward we can come together and push this pandemic out of our lives and end it,” Schadt said.
In sharing her thoughts on the resolution, Shaben, a family nurse practitioner, read aloud a statement endorsed by 37 healthcare providers in Oswego County and one in Onondaga County.
“As healthcare providers practicing in Oswego County, we found your recent vote to promote politics at the expense of the health and safety of the community to be completely irresponsible,” Shaber read. “Passing a resolution to oppose vaccine mandates imposed by higher authorities is detrimental to our efforts to bring this pandemic under control. Furthermore, undermining the work that dedicated healthcare professionals are doing every day, at the risk of their own personal safety, to control a vaccine-preventable disease, destabilizes our efforts and fuels mistrust. As leaders of this community, we expected support from you. Putting politics ahead of the health and wellbeing of your constituents is counterproductive to the strides we have already made in reducing illness, hospitalizations, and death in a community that has demonstrated higher rates of infection statewide. It is our hope moving forward that you will support the efforts of professionals in protecting and caring for our community.”
Shaben said while the resolution cannot have an effect on the implementation of vaccine mandates, it does negatively impact the medical community and its efforts to secure the health and safety of the community.
Plumadore, a family nurse practitioner specializing in mental health, spoke next.
“I have been a nurse practitioner for 41 years and the guiding principles that I’ve had is that people do have the right to make informed choices on their healthcare, we all need to work together for the health and safety of community, and I have trusted the CDC,” Plumadore said. “They are the experts on public health and safety, and before COVID, in my 41 years, I never saw legislators who are not trained in public health interfere with health policy.”
She said she recognizes that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention makes mistakes, but when it changes recommendations, it is because more scientific information is added. There have been many changes in how to respond to COVID as it is a new virus. She said the changes means the CDC is doing its job in keeping up with new information.
Plumadore said the community needs consistent factual information to combat the mistrust and confusion.
She clarified that no one is forcing anyone to get a vaccine – it is mandating a vaccine in the workforce or being tested for the virus. She also said that mandating vaccines is nothing new, especially in healthcare and education, and the only difference now is the misinformation and mistrust being spread.
“In regards to this resolution, the biggest flaw is that it misses the whole point,” Plumadore said. “That individual freedom and choice is for the individual, but this is not about the individual. It is about what is best for the health and safety of us all. Your neighbors, your friends and your co-workers. This resolution adds confusion and seeds more mistrust in our agencies and makes our jobs as healthcare providers, in keeping people healthy, harder.”
Berrus, a registered nurse specializing in critical care, was the last to speak. She works in the emergency department, intensive care unit and on the COVID floor. She said for her and her co-workers, they have had to move around a lot and where they will work changes on a daily basis. Along with extended wait times in the ER, she said there is often the circumstance of patients being treated in a different unit due to lack of space.
“We are seeing that the unvaccinated population really is what is driving our numbers in our admissions,” Berrus said. “We really have the need for everyone to get vaccinated and do their part so we can overcome this pandemic that we’re in right now, so that we can get back to our families, get back to our lives, keep doing what we all do in our settings.”
Drumm ended with saying everyone needs to be “rowing in the same direction” when it comes to the pandemic.
Children ages 5 to 11 are now able to get the COVID-19 vaccine, and Shaben urged families to vaccinate their children. There are several opportunities to receive a vaccine, including pediatric vaccines and drive-thru vaccines for the whole family through ConnextCare at different locations across the county. For more information about vaccines through ConnextCare, visit https://www.connextcare.org/COVID19.
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Polio, mumps, diptheria, tetanus, measles, rubella, chickenpox.
Vaccines are meant to prevent you from getting the disease listed on their name. Polio, mumps, tetanus, etcetera, those vaccines prevent. This one does not, so the CDC changed the definition of vaccine to fit their narrative. Telling people that it isn’t about freedom follows this narrative. Mandating vaccines regardless of previous infection and recovery, and the refusal of health care “experts” to recognize the protection that natural immunity provides shows a lack of transparency and trustworthiness that just makes people more hesitant to believe anything they say. I’ve had Covid and recovered without issue, why should I get vaccinated? Where is the long term data on side effects of this “vaccine”? Where is the data on the effects of repeated booster shots? Where is the study on the myocarditis side effects that many people are being diagnosed with? Why is that not being reported on? Why are we mandating a shot on 5-11 year olds who have almost no risk of Covid? The media does not ask these questions and is neglecting their duty to perform unbiased journalism. Everything they publish is aimed at one outcome, get vaccinated, nothing else matters. This makes them untrustworthy. Remember the saying, “there are two sides to every story”, we only get one and so many people believe it.
The Democrat legislators time will limited. They’re feeling they know what’s best for me, my family and my children is where they lose me. The government does not and will not ever know what’s best for you. Open your eyes. The vaccine doesn’t stop the spread. Why does Oswego County not show us their new cases and tell us how many new positives are vaxxed vs unvaxxed. Also on the deaths why are we letting the public know the age, sex, race and vaccine status? Maybe also add if they have underlying conditions. Now the force on kids next? For what? They’re not dying if healthy. The risk vs reward tells me my kids would have more of a risk with the vaccine. Get a life. Let us go back to living. And if you have your vaccine you shouldn’t worry if it works! You’re protected right?