Why won’t the Sheriff’s Office enforce the county’s Covid-19 vaccination policy?

Sara Rubin here, feeling beyond enraged. I’m enraged that we’re still in a pandemic that we could have and should have stopped before it became a pandemic. I’m even more enraged that people are still dying from Covid-19 here in the United States where access to vaccines is free and easy. 

Bear with me, there are more degrees of rage here. I’m enraged at Monterey County Health Officer Edward Moreno’s most recent non-mandatory set of recommendations to wear a mask—the kind of wishy-washy directive that has the effect of punting responsibility from government to business owners and individuals, who are left to make their own determinations about mask guidance. 

The good news is that where the CDC, the state government and the county government have been tentative, a bunch of local employers have been bold in taking a science-based stance. Here at the Weekly, employees are required to be vaccinated (or present a doctor’s note with a reason they are not). Montage, a huge employer of healthcare workers, today announced that it will require its workforce to be vaccinated or present a credible medical or religious exemption (and submit to regular Covid-19 testing). Of Montage’s roughly 3,000 employees, about 87 percent are vaccinated today. The remaining 400 or so will either have to get vaccinated by Oct. 1, or have an exemption. 

“We feel like we’re really in good company and we are advancing a practice that is the right thing to do,” Montage President/CEO Steve Packer told Weekly staff writer Pam Marino today, as she reports a story that will run in Thursday’s paper.

So yes, there’s some good news—some big, bold employer-led decisions that set a high bar. But then there’s the real source of my seething rage and it comes from the opposite end of the spectrum. It comes from an employer—in this case, an elected official—deciding the status quo is good enough when it comes to public health, even though the status quo is failing.

Last Friday, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to set a similarly high bar, requiring that all county employees get vaccinated unless they have a medical or religious exemption (in which case they must submit to regular Covid-19 testing), effective Aug. 16. County Administrative Officer Charles McKee announced the new policy in an email to all 5,400 county employees. 

A few hours later, at 6:14pm on Friday, Undersheriff John Mineau sent his own email to Sheriff’s Office employees: “The Sheriff does not support the policy and Sheriff won’t enforce this on [Sheriff’s Office] employees. His belief is this is a personal decision between and (sic) employee and the employee’s physician or clergy.” (Important note: If one’s physician or clergy advises them not to be vaccinated, there is an exemption—it’s right there in the policy.)

I called Sheriff Steve Bernal to tell him that I’m flabbergasted he would choose, at this point in the pandemic, given all that we know, to make this about personal choice over public health and safety, and ask why he thinks this is a good idea. (I haven’t heard back.)

I also consulted the Monterey County Sheriff’s Code of Ethics manual. There’s a bunch of high-minded language in there about protecting the public. “With respect to serving and protecting our communities, we are and must be held to a higher standard. We have the most sacred of all trusts in our possession, that being the trust of the public,” the manual reads. 

Public trust is earned or lost accordingly. One easy way to lose it: Give the middle finger to science, and fail not only to lead, but to simply do your part in protecting public health and safety. We can, and we must, do better.