On January 12, at 9am, the State Health Department Board will meet to discuss a few proposed changes to the law that will impact the lives of any Washington citizen who has not taken the COVID injections, which now total three for adults and two for anyone under the age of twelve.
The meeting will discuss giving the local health official, in the Tri-Cities, Dr. Person, the power to direct local police and sheriff’s deputies (and possibly, other armed state agencies, including the National Guard), to enforce quarantine on an individual which:
“Has reason to believe that the person or group of persons is, or is suspected to be, infected with, exposed to, or contaminated with
a communicable disease” WAC 246-100-045
WAC 246-100-40 grants this power:
“At his or her sole discretion, a local health officer may issue an emergency detention order causing a person or group of persons to be immediately detained for purposes of isolation or quarantine”
But the Board will discuss adding COVID-19 and, presumably, all its variants, to the list of reasons for detention.
In addition to granting the local health department power to use the police to enforce quarantine, the State Health Board will also discuss adding the COVID injection to the childhood vaccine schedule required for attendance in public school. Currently, the schedule contains forty-three (43) injections for fifteen (15) different diseases between the ages of birth to six years old. A separate schedule for kids aged seven to eighteen contains thirty-two (32) injections for seventeen (17) diseases.
Currently, only medical or religious reasons are considered lawful to be exempted from these injections, but both exemptions must be verified by a doctor.
The agenda for the meeting provides fifty (50) minutes for public comment at 11:00 am during the meeting that begins at 9am. Those wishing to make a public comment must be pre-registered by Friday, January 7th at noon, but all can join the zoom meeting at any point at this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_DjusY10WTj-EyQyDTdyxsw or by calling +1 (253) 215-8782 and using the Webinar ID: 894 7406 4216 Passcode: 957396
Below are the laws as written:
https://app.leg.wa.gov/WAC/default.aspx?cite=246-100-070
https://app.leg.wa.gov/WAC/default.aspx?cite=246-100-045
https://app.leg.wa.gov/WAC/default.aspx?cite=246-100-040
https://apps.leg.wa.gov/wac/default.aspx?cite=246-100
https://apps.leg.wa.gov/wac/default.aspx?cite=246-105