If Idaho’s largest health district ‘stays silent’ on public health, what’s the point?

The Central District Health board has voted to make itself irrelevant.

Central District Health board members voted last week to “stay silent” on whether to recommend that children wear a mask to reduce the spread of COVID-19, as first reported by Boise State Public Radio.

Board members didn’t vote to say masks don’t work (although a couple made that argument); they merely removed from the Central District Health website and from written materials any recommendation that children wear masks in indoor settings.

“We’re not telling parents, ‘Don’t do it,’ we’re just telling parents, ‘Decide for yourself,’ ” board member Raúl Labrador said.

But that would be like the Food and Drug Administration saying, “We’re not telling people, ‘Don’t eat that salmonella-tainted peanut butter.’ We’re just telling them, ‘Decide for yourself.’ ”

By removing itself from the public discussion about what the science says about the efficacy of wearing a mask, the Central District Health board creates a vacuum that will be filled only by bad actors spreading misinformation and disinformation via social media.

So instead of a recommendation from Central District Health to wear a mask based on peer-reviewed scientific studies, we’ll get a recommendation from a Facebook meme shared by your crazy Aunt Jillian who also believes John F. Kennedy Jr. is still alive and will come back to reinstate Donald J. Trump as president.

Central District Health exists to make recommendations for public health, to keep the public safe and to save lives, not to let the public take uninformed risks because of politics.

Hepatitis outbreak at a local diner? Go ahead and eat there if you want. Toxic algae bloom in a local pond? Jump on in; the health district won’t tell you what to do.

What’s next? “We’re not saying, ‘Don’t dump raw sewage in the Boise River’; we’re just saying, ‘Decide for yourself.’ ”

Labrador and board member Ryan Cole continued to question the efficacy of masks. Labrador said wearing a mask “doesn’t comport with the science.”

Cole went even further: “The science indicates … especially with the masking issue, that it has never worked and never will work for any community respiratory virus in any community setting.”

What “science” is Cole referring to?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, using science, recommends masking in school, depending on community transmission. The American Medical Association is clear on masks.

CDH director Russ Duke did his level best to make it clear that masks work to reduce the spread of infection. And he noted the difference between peer-reviewed scientific journals and what he called “entertainment” journals.

Labrador favored “freedom” for parents to choose, to get their own information and make their own decisions.

There are two key problems with that. First, the community relies on organizations like Central District Health to weigh in on public safety matters. Second, masks help slow the spread of the coronavirus to others. If a child comes to school with coronavirus and isn’t wearing a mask, that child can more easily spread the virus to other children, putting that child and their family at risk. Kids bring the virus home, possibly infecting vulnerable members of their family, and can increase the spread in the community, affecting us all.

Public health is just that — public. We’re all in this together.

Labrador tried to make the argument that school districts are making policies based on CDH recommendations, in effect making a CDH recommendation into policy. So his solution is to get rid of the recommendation.

But upon what information should a school district make a policy decision, if not a recommendation from its local health board? The Facebook meme that some parent brings to a school board meeting while screaming at school board members about “freedom”?

Our public health districts are there, in part, to issue these recommendations.

This is particularly troubling when we’re seeing an uptick in COVID-19 cases again and our positivity rate, which was 5.5% last week. It’s still too early to know whether this will be as serious or as deadly as previous surges. But if it is, we know we can’t count on Central District Health to provide sound guidance.

At their next board meeting, board members plan to discuss the possibility of getting rid of the recommendation that children get the COVID-19 vaccine, with Cole saying he’s “adamant” that the board should actually recommend that children not get it. “This is the hill I will die on,” he said.

Cole apparently would have a lot of deaths on his hill. Fact: Vaccines prevent more serious illness that can lead to death.

By removing science-based deliberation, decision-making and public health recommendations, the health board makes itself pointless.

Perhaps that’s what Labrador and Cole want.

Unfortunately, that’s not good for public health.

Statesman editorials are the unsigned opinion expressing the consensus of the Idaho Statesman’s editorial board. Board members are opinion editor Scott McIntosh, opinion writer Bryan Clark, editor Chadd Cripe, newsroom editors Dana Oland and Jim Keyser and community members J.J. Saldaña and Christy Perry.