Group of SLO County residents lambast new mandate for health care workers 

The debate about COVID-19 vaccines and face masks that has been ongoing across the nation and in San Luis Obispo County since 2020 recently flared to life again at the county government center.

At the Oct. 17 SLO County Board of Supervisors meeting, roughly a dozen residents criticized Public Health Director Penny Borenstein and her Sept. 21 mandate ordering health care workers to get influenza and updated COVID-19 vaccines.

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• File Photo By Jayson Mellom
• RECHARGED CONTROVERSY San Luis Obispo County Public Health Director Penny Borenstein, pictured here in 2020, said on Oct. 17, the new vaccine and face mask mandate for health care works is no different from the county's 12-year-old influenza mandate.

The notice directs SLO County's health care facilities and organizations to adopt and enact such a policy. Any health care worker who refuses to get those vaccines must sign a written declaration and wear a surgical mask or higher-level respirator while on duty during respiratory illness season. Unless rescinded, Borenstein's order will apply every influenza season from Nov. 1 to April 30 of the following year.

Atascadero resident Eric Greening pleaded action from the supervisors and claimed they might be held liable if the mandate results in health care workers being harmed.

"I'm not sure what role the supervisors can play relative to the coercion imposed on health care workers to take dangerous, experimental, spike protein-dispensing substances, but please do what you can to ameliorate it," he said.

Greening went on to cite the Nuremberg Code, ethical principles that set boundaries on permissible medical experimentation on human subjects. The code rose from the United States v. Karl Brandt case—one of the Nuremberg trials that took place after World War II.

"Although the mandate sidestepped [vaccination] by constant masking, just imagine laboring through a physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausting 12-hour nursing shift wearing a mask," he said. "This choice actually constitutes pressure, which violates the Nuremberg Code."

Currently, two strains—EG.5 and FL.1.51.—are the most prevalent COVID-19 subvariants. County health officials recommend the new booster for everyone ages 6 months and above.

But according to one local resident, many community members aren't interested.

Linda Quinlan told the supervisors that her group conducted a survey about the new mandate. She said she is the SLO County chair of the New California State—a movement to develop a new state within the existing state of California that "has become governed by a tyranny," according to its website.

"When I heard that Penny Borenstein had issued another order, we started to hear rumblings within the community about what people were feeling and sensing," Quinlan said. "We decided to put out a survey. Within 48 hours, we had over 600 responses. This morning, we had over 800 responses."

She added that 241 survey participants were in favor of the mandate while 638 said they weren't.

Borenstein herself later commented on the matter at the supervisors meeting. She defended her decision and cited the county's history with mandates. Vaccines have been required in the health care system and by the state's school immunization law for decades, she said, combating diseases like diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, and hepatitis-B.

"Those are rare diseases," Borenstein said. "They got to be rare because of vaccines."

Further, SLO County has an influenza mandate that's been in place for 12 years. Similar to the new mandate, it's offered health care workers the choice to either get inoculated or mask up.

Borenstein stressed that COVID-19 is the third leading cause of death and is more prevalent than the flu. She added that the vaccine is safe and effective.

"It just seemed like, given the implications of COVID in our community, that the health care order would be a natural extension [of the influenza order]," she said. "What we're dealing with here is the politicization around COVID in particular because it really is no different than the influenza mandate that has been in place."

However, the two conservative supervisors paid heed to calls for rescinding her mandate. First District Supervisor John Peschong motioned to bring back an item before the end of the month to discuss the COVID-19 vaccine and mask health order. Fifth District Supervisor Debbie Arnold seconded it. She said that she only learned about the mandate when some constituents complained to her, and that it wasn't first run by elected officials.

"I found it ironic that ... it is a government order where one physician can mandate to other physicians and medical professionals that they have to personally take medication they may not agree with," Arnold said. "I think we can all agree that medicine has never been an exact, exact science. People go and get second opinions often when they have an ailment."

Supervisors Bruce Gibson, Dawn Ortiz-Legg, and Jimmy Paulding shot down Peschong's motion in a 3-2 vote. Δ