High stakes

A discussion at Tuesday’s regular meeting of the Commissioners Court centered – again – on the vice-grip financial pressure brought upon the public by the forced government shutdown during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In essence it was second-verse-same-as-the-first, with Precinct 4 Commissioner Dave Eagle and two citizens who spoke at a county meeting last week again denouncing the action and its impact on the lives and liberty of citizens.

They question the constitutionality of shelter-at-home orders issued by Gov. Greg Abbott, County Judge Ron Massingill and other county governments.

Tuesday’s debate included a new element: chickenor-the-egg queries as to whether the numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths are lower than predicted because predictions were wrong to begin with, or because social distancing measures are working.

A discussion of the county’s response to COVID-19 was placed on the agenda at the request of Eagle, who several times has spoken out against the shelter-at-home orders that have gravely impacted people’s livelihoods.

In his remarks leading off the discussion, Eagle referred to Dr. Anthony Fauci as “a professional bureaucrat” and an “authoritarian” and said that in January Fauci indicated that COVID-19 “was no worse than regular flu.”

Fauci is one of the lead members of the Trump administration’s White House Coronavirus Task Force. He has served as director of the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases since 1984.

Eagle indicated that the math isn’t adding up as it relates to coronavirus predictions and confirmed cases and deaths.

“I’m very much questioning what we’re doing,” the commissioner stated. “I think people need to go back to work.” Eagle suggested that Abbott and county officials Jay Webster, the emergency management coordinator, and Dr. David Blocker, the public health authority, may not have been getting accurate information.

“I urge people to seriously think about the damage that we’re doing to our community,” he said. “You throw a pebble into still waters and eventually that ripple hits every shoreline. We’ve thrown a boulder into our still waters.”

Precinct 2 Commissioner Ron Cotton raised the question of whether the numbers might be different if physical distancing measures had not been enacted.

Eagle responded that he could have “laid money on the line that somebody was going to take credit,” but added that “there are zero facts” to back up claims that the measures taken are the reason for lower numbers.

As he did at last week’s specially called Commissioners Court meeting to discuss the pandemic, Massingill said that the court acted on “the information that we were given” from science and health care professionals.

He cited the example of how the Minnesota cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul handled the Spanish Flu outbreak in 1918.

“One stayed open, the other didn’t,” he said. “The death rates were vastly different with the city that did put the social distancing” in place. At the time, Minneapolis was mocked for banning all social gatherings. But in the end, that city had 267 deaths per 100,000 residents while St. Paul, which carried on as usual, suffered 413 deaths per 100,000.

Public health experts believe that Minneapolis made a mistake, though, by returning to normal life too soon. The city was struck by a second wave of infections.

Other speakers at Tuesday’s meeting included David Hebert and Mary Dix, the two citizens who spoke at last week’s meeting, and Scott London.

London joined Hebert and Dix in criticizing the Commissioners Court for going along with Abbott’s executive order and noted that many people who shop at stores deemed essential businesses are not wearing masks.

“Is this ineffective order really worth giving our liberties away?” he asked.

Dr. Harold Granek, who said he was a math minor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), provided an opposing view to Eagle’s.

He stated that Fauci is “not just a bureaucrat” and that the physician and immunologist designed the protocol for treating HIV, which is now a “contained disease” and no longer a death sentence.

Granek indicated that Eagle was not taking into consideration that there is “very inadequate testing” for COVID-19, a disease that can take up to 14 days to present symptoms.

“We don’t know that half the people in the county don’t have this,” he said.

Granek urged caution in bringing life back to normal and praised public officials who took actions “that were not politically popular.”

The agenda item was discussion only. No action was taken.

That night, the county was informed that two additional local residents had died of COVID-19, bringing the death toll to three.