Concealing crucial COVID info a recipe for distrust in Stanislaus County government

There is no more important time for government transparency than in the middle of a deadly pandemic. Unfortunately, Stanislaus County’s commitment to transparency in one important aspect amounts to lip service.

The Modesto Bee Editorial Board in the past five weeks has demanded three times (this is the fourth) that locations of COVID-19 outbreaks be shared with everyone. Such information is available in other counties, is not protected by privacy laws and surely would help people make informed decisions to protect themselves and their families.

Dr. Julie Vaishampayan, Stanislaus public health officer, finally responded Thursday with a polite but firm “no.”

Early on in the pandemic, she learned that a health official in Colorado, where public disclosure is mandatory, said businesses were reluctant to come forward. Vaishampayan decided she would not release outbreak locations here and has not strayed from that determination, she said in a telephone interview.

“It becomes more of an adversarial relationship; they would hide outbreaks, and tell employees not to tell us where they work. We get that now. And it would get worse if it’s publicly reported,” she said.

Never mind that some other states and counties in California — including our neighbor to the south, Merced — trust their people with the very information that should be available here in Stanislaus. With a few keystrokes, anyone can learn that at least three employees have come down with the virus at the Raley’s in Merced, and at Me-n-Ed’s Pizzeria in Los Banos, for example.

If Vaishampayan had spoken to her counterparts in Merced County, perhaps she would know that they look at reporting outbreaks as another tool in the fight against the coronavirus, and that doing so has not stopped that county from gathering what they need from 66 stores, offices and other businesses currently on their list. She hasn’t done that, she acknowledged, although another member of Stanislaus’ command staff did.

“I’m not going to say they’re doing it wrong. That’s the path they’ve chosen,” Vaishampayan said. “Maybe that works in their community. I don’t know. In my expertise, and from what I heard from other places, I don’t think it’s the right measure.”

Modesto City Schools is reporting outbreaks at all 35 of its campuses, broken down into cases of infected students and staff. That suggests a real commitment to transparency.

Vaishampayan is OK with that, she said, because children attend school multiple hours at a time, which is different from spending a few minutes in a store.

Outbreaks among store employees often result from letting their guard down in break rooms or gatherings for birthday cake or holiday work parties, she said. Once alerted, her team swoops in and isolates people, removing the threat of infecting customers, Vaishampayan said.

“It is my expert opinion, using my knowledge and the experience of many other jurisdictions, that posting these names will be detrimental to our goal of stopping transmission of COVID-19,” she said in an email.

So how’s that strategy working for us?

Stanislaus just moved into second among California’s 58 counties for the state’s highest death rate, behind only Imperial. December was Stanislaus’ worst COVID month by far in terms of spread, cases and deaths.

One would hope our leaders are anxiously looking for any and all ways to slow the virus’ unrelenting advance, and not for excuses to keep us in the dark.

How Stanislaus can increase trust

In an unprecedented public health emergency, there is no excuse for siding with business over people. Stanislaus public health leaders know where our outbreaks are, and they refuse to tell us.

Trust me; I’m with the government isn’t cutting it. It’s a losing strategy to withhold information that might be helpful because of fear that something might happen (evasive reporting) rather than acting to prevent something that is happening.

A county embracing transparency trusts its people with the truth. It’s shameful that isn’t happening here, at Stanislaus’ online dashboard for all to see.

The dashboard also should be improved to show how vaccines are being distributed throughout the county. People should be able to track daily how many vaccines have been received and administered, and what categories of people are getting them.

To her credit, Vaishampayan said such dashboard improvements are on the way. That’s good.

But we’re not done.

A county embracing transparency would create yet another dashboard tab allowing people to track spending of the many millions of dollars received in relief money. People should not have to search through myriad documents and reports to see how their leaders are taking care of them in times of crisis.

We’ve heard variations of we’re all in this together, from Vaishampayan and other officials, quite enough. It rings hollow when transparency falters.

People will not trust government if government doesn’t trust them.

This story was originally published January 4, 2021 at 5:00 AM.