It’s your moral duty, Modesto mayor, to speak up on COVID vaccine
Modesto Mayor Sue Zwahlen should use her unique platform to encourage more people to get COVID-19 vaccines.
The COVID crisis is not close to over, as many hoped and wished when California fully reopened in mid-June. The Delta variant is bringing a new crisis, with Stanislaus County case rates doubling in the past couple of weeks.
The dire situation could be entirely avoided, and lives could be saved, if many more would bare arms and get their shots.
A certain portion of Americans rushed as soon as vaccines became available. A second segment never will be vaccinated, no matter how many around us get sick (58,359 Stanislaus cases, as of Thursday) or even die (1,084).
The third population is somewhere in the middle — perhaps ambivalent, maybe skeptical. They’re not gung-ho about vaccines, but neither are they dead-set deniers. Maybe they need a little push.
Few among us, if any, are better situated to deliver that nudge than Zwahlen.
In The Modesto Bee’s endorsement before her election in February, the editorial board noted her four-decade career as an emergency room nurse at a Modesto hospital. People trust nurses, the front-liners who give us and our loved ones the most visible and immediate care, often with genuine compassion.
No one, The Bee reasoned, could be better suited than a longtime nurse to move the needle of public awareness in this highly unusual, life-changing and deadly pandemic.
Modesto mayor walks the walk
Don’t misunderstand. Zwahlen’s personal message since taking office, and before, has been absolutely on point — encouraging proper behavior like hygiene, physical distance and mask wearing. Though fully vaccinated, the 67-year-old mayor was masked when meeting with Bee editorial board members Wednesday, following public health guidance that seniors resume mask wearing indoors regardless of vaccination status.
Asked why she hasn’t taken a more prominent profile in the fight against COVID, Zwahlen was thoughtful. “I recognize I have a voice,” she said, “and I would do anything to promote health and well-being.”
But the mayor has barely scratched the surface in the universe of what someone in her position of influence might do.
Sean Hannity, nodding to the growing gravity of the coronavirus upswing, on Monday famously told TV viewers to “please take COVID seriously,” and added, “I believe in the science of vaccination.” Love him or loathe him, the Fox News host finally decided to use his bully pulpit in an attempt to persuade people to do the right thing, because too many Americans are needlessly sick and dying.
We don’t lightly use the word “needlessly.” The unvaccinated account for 97% of recent COVID hospitalizations and 99% of recent deaths. All of this suffering and loss could be avoided if more people would recognize vaccine shots as the answer and not a political wedge issue.
Most of the COVID commentary readers have seen on this opinion page in the past 17 months has been directed at Stanislaus elected and public health officials, because the burden for local COVID response rests almost entirely on their shoulders.
County messaging, quite frankly, has been hot and cold, up and down. A laudable effort to vaccinate, for example, hardly undoes damage caused by supervisors voting not to enforce public health guidelines; by some supervisors’ hypocrisy in refusing to wear masks when everyone else attending their meetings was required to; and by Monday’s ho-hum public service announcement advising that “fully vaccinated people may want the extra protection of wearing a mask indoors.”
“May want”? Other counties mandated or strongly urged masks for all. But we got “may want.” Talk about weak sauce.
How to deliver vaccine message
Among the few videos on the city of Modesto’s YouTube page is one called “Modesto’s response to COVID-19.” It’s doubtful that anyone watching it would agree its message remains relevant.
It was filmed and posted early in the pandemic and features mayors from all nine cities in our county plus the county Board of Supervisors’ former chairwoman. Of those 10 authority figures, eight have been replaced. And their main message at that point — isolate at home, to keep the virus from spreading — is horribly outdated.
To her credit, Mayor Zwahlen uses direct language at the end of a short video recently posted on the city’s Facebook page, encouraging people to get vaccinated so they can safely participate in various “downtown festivities.” That’s a start.
Think how much more effective would be a video entirely devoted to the most important life-and-death challenge facing us at this moment. Or a newsletter, or flier. Or an email blast, or a state of the city address. Or even an op-ed column in The Bee, with a simple, strong message: “Get vaccinated.”
It’s true that City Hall is in between official spokespeople, who normally are charged with helping leaders get important messages to the people. But that person isn’t the only one at City Hall who knows how to write a short script or shoot cellphone video.
Madame Mayor, our advice is this: Use your widely respected voice and your unique platform to move people to do the right thing and get themselves vaccinated.
In your long medical career, you’ve saved many lives. It’s time to save some more.
This story was originally published July 26, 2021 at 4:00 AM.