So, today I snuck into the Governor’s Emergency Management Services conference call under my business alias, Deuce Bigalow (I’m not kidding, I will include a screenshot in the comments). I kind of wrestled around whether or not there would be potential ramifications, even perhaps legally, if I were to release this information. Before I got too deep into looking at it, I ultimately decided that at this point in the pandemic, given the response we’ve provided to date, I just don’t give a shit. People deserve to know where our leadership stands, and people deserve to be spoken to directly. If you’re getting this information from me for the first time --- a private citizen who probably shouldn’t have been on the call in the first place --- it should be indicative that you don’t know where our leadership stands, and they aren’t speaking directly to their constituents.
Here are some notes from what I heard. Please note that I typed as quickly as I could, but the items I’ve left in quotes are items that I heard verbatim, but not everything will be in quotes because I don’t want to incorrectly attribute anything that he said. Also, not everything reads with exceptional grammar, which often happens when spoken word is quoted. I think most of you know how delicate I am with my composition, hopefully you’ve been following long enough to know that some of these sentence structures are not my own, personal writing.
Dr. Randall Williams, DHSS Director, opened up the call with a few small items, most notably was that he expects that by April or May every Missourian should have access to a vaccine, and there to be as many as 5 different vaccine options.
Governor Mike Parson took center stage shortly after, and opened up by saying that everyone on the call was in for a “pretty frank conversation”. He noted that “the unemployment rate for Missouri is at 4.9%”.
Governor Parson said that, regarding cases and hospitalizations, “our numbers are doubling in the last 30 days from where they were for the last 9 months”. He noted that “this is definitely at a turning point in the state on where we are going to go”, and that “the problem is going to become the capacity” of our healthcare systems. Then, he said that “if we keep going in the rate we are going, within four or five weeks we are going to be at a turning point on whether we can handle it or not”.
Governor Parson went on to warn the participants that “I need everyone to understand how important this is, that what we do and what actions we take in the next 4-6 weeks are critical”.
Specifically, he expressed “Rural Missouri --- you need to step up a little bit”, but followed that statement later in the call by adding “There’s one thing that I think is totally misleading, is when someone tries to blame somebody else for a virus. When you see one city blame a rural area for a virus, that is not a good thing for the state”.
Related to guidelines from the federal level, Governor Parson expressed “I have been pretty straightforward in my messaging. Not much of that message is going to change”. For me, on a call I probably wasn’t supposed to be on in the first place, it was weird because I could feel the air being sucked out of a virtual room for the first time ever. He followed this up by saying “I’m gonna tell you, I’m not going to be mandating anybody to do anything. If you are in one of these high risk areas, you need to take some kind of action on the local levels”. He added “I don’t think anyone expected this thing to go as fast as it has. If it goes as fast as it has in the next 30 days as it has in the past 30 days, it’s going to be a problem”, and “take a good look at what things are back home, you need to make sure everyone understands that this is real. Government is not gonna do it, don’t expect one person to be able to do it”.
Someone on the call, who I will not mention by name or title, wheeled their cojones up to their keyboard in a wheelbarrow and asked “why are you refusing to mandate masks?”, to which the Governor replied by saying the following, which I am quite confident on picking this up:
“I’ve said from day one since we’ve dealt with this pandemic that I didn’t think it was the state government’s job to do that. The other thing that’s right behind the door is a vaccine. I don’t believe a governor should mandate a vaccine without input from the public, and that’s the first step down that road”.
No, I absolutely did not make that part up.
Governor Parson closed out with his best take on some encouraging words, saying “We are in a tough situation right now dealing with this virus. There is hope, and we can get through this virus”.
Boy, there’s a lot to unpack here. One of the things that didn’t make it into quotes above is the fact that several times, Governor Parson circled around personal responsibility, but reiterated that no one person is responsible. This was a theme throughout his address.
I do hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it seems that any hope of a mask mandate for the state is gone. A mask mandate would not fix the problem, nor would mandating every social mitigation strategy we have, but we are at a place RIGHT NOW where we need to throw everything we’ve got at slowing the spread. What is most concerning, at least related to the mask mandate, is what he is basing his opposition on --- because of concern that a mask mandate provides a slippery slope towards the governor being responsible for mandating vaccines. I suspect one of two things here --- literal insanity, or trying to weasel out of doing what every health-minded Missourian is asking for, for some other reason I can’t comprehend.
Another tremendous problem is that our governor seems to know that the situation is alarming, but that we still have somewhere between 4-6 weeks to prepare for a bad situation. The reason I went all-caps in that last paragraph is because we are in a bad situation right freaking now. I am asking an entirely serious question here --- has our governor set foot inside of a hospital care unit in the last month? Just in the last day or two, he has been sharing photos of himself out and about, meeting strangers and even hugging staff at a Casey’s General Store somewhere in NW Missouri that he stopped in (which obviously is not modeling the social distancing he preached about on the call today). I cannot imagine that if the man has been inside of a care unit, he is completely oblivious as to what’s going on… so who is helping him formulate this opinion on the current situation? Dr. Williams? Twitter?
You guys, I am absolutely sickened for our healthcare workers and hospital leaders, who are pleading for some kind of help, and reaching out their hands, only to get a single finger in response. Our governor does not understand this situation. This behavior is negligent. I am ready to throw these folks out.
…
Ah, Neosho. My hometown. For residents and neighboring communities in Newton County, they are known as “The Flower Box City”. This is because back in 1955, the city was selected for a civic beautification project, in which 3,000 flower boxes with budding flowers were placed around the town. It’s also home to the world’s largest flowerbox, which is an old Kansas City Southern railroad car that was placed at the northern end of Morse Park in 2002. I actually remember covering this story as part of our student-produced news.
Also, Neosho. For residents and neighboring communities in Newton County, it is also known as the first city in Missouri to outright lift every COVID-19 mitigation strategy across the board, far earlier than anywhere else. Famous for the City Council meeting that turned into people shouting at the council after person after person stood before them, reciting completely made up “truths” which were met with a series of “AMEN!” and applause. The first jurisdiction in the state where the health department was agreeable to no longer quarantining students who had been exposed to the virus.
And, as of today, Neosho. For residents and neighboring communities in Newton County, it can be known as the county who is using federal CARES funding to purchase a refrigerated mobile morgue, because “area facilities are full”.
Newton County Commissioner Bill Reiboldt was quoted as saying “We respect the dead. We are kind and sensitive about this in a legal way - this is all about helping our friends and neighbors when we can”. They’re just so damn friendly and neighborly, aren’t they?
You show up to dispute medical recommendations, you complain about how inconvenient the pandemic is, and now you have a gigantic fridge for dead bodies coming to town. These are your tax dollars hard at work.