4 December 2020 — 1106 mst

To corral Mr. Covid in the Flathead, Joe Russell must
find a way to corral Holmquist, Mitchell, and Brodehl

Former Flathead health department director Joe Russell, who retired in 2017 at age 58, has applied for his old job. He’ll be hired, replacing interim director Tamalee St. James Robinson, whose tenure ends at 2020’s end.

Russell’s return will rebuild morale in the overworked department, but for that improved morale to hold, he must find a way to persuade the Flathead County Commission and at least one of the health board’s four “We love Mr. Covid” members to support masking-up and other Covid confinement measures to protect the community until the vaccine produces herd immunity a year from now.

To say that won’t be easy grievously understates the difficulty of the task. The commissioners and the Covid abetting four are listening not to medical and epidemiological experts but to reckless libertarians, religious leaders who trust in God but not in medicine, and business owners who resist government regulation as a matter of principle. Compounding that problem is a population that voted overwhelmingly (60% plus) for our Covid Denier in Chief, Donald J. Trump and that refuses to take the pandemic seriously.

Now that two Covid vaccines seem certain to be available in a few weeks, the commissioners, the Covid abetting four, the fools who refuse to take the pandemic seriously, the barenosers and barefacers and barflies and self-styled defenders of what they call liberty (which means they claim a right to infect other people without their consent), will resist commonsense public health measures in the belief that the vaccine will save all.

Dealing with those people will be hard enough. Dealing with the Flathead’s not insignificant anti-vaccine movement will be even more difficult and frustrating.

I hope Russell’s prepared for those vexations. If not, his return from retirement will be short and bitter.