MOHAVE COUNTY – Supervisor Travis Lingenfelter believes Mohave County is wasting resources on COVID-19 reporting. Lingenfelter questioned the policy during Monday’s Board meeting as Department of Public Health Director Denise Burley provided another coronavirus update as she’s done many times during the 18-month pandemic.
Lingenfelter said Health Department staff and Communications Director Roger Galloway have flooded Board members and the public with information and data that has only been duplicated and is also available on the Arizona Department of Health Services website.
“I’ve been on this Board for 10 months now and we’ve been getting them almost every day, if not every day, and gosh, that’s a lot of time and expense to do these,” Lingenfelter said. He suggested it might be better to allow interested citizens to pull their own data and let County staff return to their regular job duties.
“How many more weeks are we going to continue doing these weekly emails and press releases about cases and deaths?” Lingenfelter queried. “I don’t get it. When is the logical end to these?”
Supervisors did not respond, but Burley answered that her department is reporting as has been directed by the Board. And report she did.
“Our case counts by week of diagnosis have decreased each week since the recent peak in late August,” Burley said. “We’ve also seen a decrease in the number of cases among school age children.”
While average age of COVID-19 deaths was once above 70 in Mohave County, 40% of the County deaths in Sept. involved people younger than 60. She said almost 38% of County residents are vaccinated, measured against a state rate of 57.4%.
“The majority of COVID cases continue to be among the unvaccinated population,” Burley told Supervisors. “In August and September that was 91.6% and 91.1%, respectively.”
Dave Hawkins
Travis, if there is no reporting, it does not mean the virus is gone. They numbers are appalling. We need this. We do not need your pontificating.
It should be noted that “un-vaccinated”, deaths, according to the CDC, includes persons who have been vaccinated within 14 days of dying.
And just like magic, it will all go away! Lingenfelter is out of touch.