Sonoma County Sheriff Mark Essick has announced his department will no longer enforce the county's stay-at-home orders.
"When this health order originally came out by Dr. (Sundari) Mase in our county, I 100% supported it," Sheriff Essick told KCBS Radio's Megan Goldsby. "I thought it was the right decision and the reason I thought it was the right decision is we were faced with an unknown. We didn't know what was going to happen."
Months later, the sheriff feels differently.
"We know so much more," Sheriff Essick said. "We know that the infection rate is low. We know that hospitalizations in the county are very low and we've done a great job of crushing the curve, as they say. It's time to reevaluate. It's time to reevaluate the restrictions on people's personal freedoms and liberties. It's time to reevaluate business and it's time to stop criminalizing behavior that would otherwise not be criminal."
In a lengthy Facebook post Thursday, the sheriff believes the county's orders restricting some business activity are out of step with state rules. He said his department will follow the state's guidelines as Dr. Mase hasn't provided the data needed to defend her decision to keep restrictions on people’s civil liberties in place.
"The curve has been flattened; hospitals were not overrun with patients; we have dramatically increased testing which verified the infection rate in Sonoma County is under control and decreasing," the post said. "Yet we continue to see successive Public Health Orders that contain inconsistent restrictions on business and personal activities without explanation."
He believes since the curve has been flattened and hospitals weren't overrun with patients, the stay-at-home orders are not necessary.
"Over the last several weeks, I have asked for more information and transparency from our Public Health Department and our Public Health Officer to explain why, with such a low infection rate, we have not moved to a less restrictive, risk based system," Sheriff Essick wrote. "I firmly believe the public must be kept informed so we can develop effective public policy and our elected officials can make informed, evidence based decisions, balancing risk against the catastrophic impacts of the Shelter in Place order on our community."
The post caught many in Sonoma County offguard and was alarming to some, Sonoma County Supervisor Shirlee Zane among them.
"I feel very strongly that we do need to stand together, even if we don't always agree with one another," Zane told KCBS Radio. "I think it's his job to uphold the law and obviously a public health order is the law. So, I hope he reconsiders."
Earlier this week, the County Health Director paused the county’s reopening for up to 14 days after reporting several alarming trends, including a recent rise in local COVID-19 cases, increased person-to-person transmission of the contagion and a spike in hospitalizations, which she characterized as "red flags." In doing so, the county announced that there will be no new reopenings, meaning that indoor church services, shopping malls and hair salons and barber shops will not open until at least June 10.
"It’s not a decision to take lightly, but I feel that we should keep our shelter-in-place order with the modifications that we put forth last Friday," Dr. Mase said in conjunction with that decision. "Over the past few months many new cases were from close contacts with family members. But now we’re shifting and seeing more cases from workplace contact also."
Sonoma County has reported 530 total coronavirus cases with four deaths related to the virus, including six new cases in the last 24 hours. The infection rate has doubled in the last two weeks.
Read the sheriff’s full post below.
