Terry Withrow, unmasked. Why Stanislaus chairman defies state COVID mandate

Maybe the trick to avoiding disappointment with Stanislaus County supervisors’ COVID-19 updates is lowering expectations.

Evidently, it’s too much to expect that the county’s highest elected officers would focus their monthly message — during the deadliest crisis in our county’s history — on the things that people desperately want and need to know. Like access to testing.

What we got instead Tuesday was a multimedia presentation on what one man thinks we need to know.

Terry Withrow, this year’s chairman of the Board of Supervisors, thinks it’s important for us to know about monoclonal antibodies. He wants everyone to be aware of antiviral therapeutic treatments for virus sufferers.

Viewers tuning in to Tuesday’s board meeting got scant information on where they might go for scarce tests that thousands need for work, school and peace of mind. We instead were treated to a lengthy lecture about molnupiravir, paxlovid, sotrovimab, fluvoxamine and remdesivir. Be still my heart.

Opinion

While government agencies on all levels explain the merits of KN95 masks over cloth ones, Withrow led Tuesday’s meeting without any face covering at all. Twelve other leaders and officials participating on the dais or adjacent to it wore masks, as required by the state mandate for everyone in public. But Withrow somehow is above that.

If you’re a regular observer of local government, this is no surprise.

Withrow’s longheld defiance

A year ago, I called out Withrow in a Modesto Bee editorial and in an opinion column, noting the hypocrisy of sitting up there unmasked while lobby signs and his agency’s agendas demanded that everyone in the room wear one. Soon after, board meetings began with then-chairman Vito Chiesa letting everyone know that mask rules don’t apply to those exempted by certain mental or medical conditions.

I backed off. It’s none of our business, I reasoned, if Withrow has some undisclosed condition. Of course, the alternative at that point should have been a see-through face shield, but that’s apparently beneath someone who needs to look tough to his political base.

It didn’t make sense, however, when Withrow in May explained that he didn’t wear a mask because plexiglass partitions had been placed between officials on the dais. I was inclined to ask, Which is it, Terry? Compromised condition, or plexiglass? But it soon became moot when in June, the California economy fully reopened, the plexiglass came down and everyone stopped wearing face coverings.

People started masking up again a few weeks later when the delta variant sent our numbers skyward. Our Stanislaus public health officer issued a countywide mask mandate in September, and many were pleased to see Withrow finally comply, for a few meetings. But his mask came off as soon as that order was lifted, and the statewide mandate that emerged with the omicron variant doesn’t matter to him.

I know because I asked him.

Withrow has never dodged questions, even when he’s extremely irritated with the press. A few other officials endowed with less courage have stopped talking when they get ticked off, and sometimes their silence lasts for years. That’s unfortunate, because people need to hear from those they elect to represent them, even when they get crossways with media.

Stanislaus leaders should lead

But those in positions of power should model good behavior. Because they’re our leaders, people look to them for cues, and at least sometimes adopt what they see. In this pandemic, real leadership includes urging vaccinations and masks in public, because those measures without question save lives.

So I asked Withrow why he doesn’t wear a mask.

“I’m not threatening anybody. There is nobody I’m endangering,” he said. “I need to interact with the public and part of that is to see my face and not hide behind a mask.”

No amount of logic — about the effectiveness of all other masked leaders, or role modeling, or the value of the lives of those next to him on the dais, or the fact that it’s a state mandate — seemed to get any traction.

Maybe, Withrow rued, journalists like me would have paid more attention to the message of COVID treatments if they hadn’t been distracted by his mask defiance. Everyone who wants a vaccine has gotten one; those who don’t, won’t, so we need to move from fruitlessly hammering the unwilling to treating the suffering, he said.

Fair enough.

Yes, medical professionals are finding some success with therapeutic agents.

No, you don’t see much about them in media — because each drug might apply to a niche of patients, depending on a host of factors specific to each. And because those medications are in short supply all over the country. And because doctors have these conversations with each patient, regardless of county supervisor dog-and-pony shows.

Responsible public health officials know an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. That’s why you see them endlessly promoting masks and shots.

Switching COVID narrative

Yet many conservatives seem obsessed with cures after infection. Think hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin — both ineffective against the coronavirus, despite energetic promotion among conspiracy theorists insisting that COVID is a progressive scam calculated to deprive them of their freedom.

Stanislaus public health officials, to be fair, are saying the right things in venues they control — the Stanislaus Health Services Agency Facebook page, for example, where you can find all-important information on testing, plus advice on what to do if you’re having trouble finding tests. Including wearing a mask.

“I had to beg and plead our county staff to do that,” Withrow said of Tuesday’s presentation.

At least he’s honest about exerting his power. But no public health official should be eager to help turn the narrative from prevention to cure to advance a political view.

There is nothing political about tests, many more of which must be provided to keep us safe, working and going to school. Conservatives and progressives alike need them.

So go to the county’s webpage, or Facebook page, or the state’s testing site for that kind of helpful information. But don’t expect to see it at Stanislaus County board meetings led by a man without a mask.