BY JIMMY LAWTON
North Country This Week

St. Lawrence County legislators passed a resolution Monday opposing government-issued COVID-19 mandates in a 12-3 vote Sept. 20 at the Services Committee meeting.

The resolution was put forward by Operations Committee Chair Rita Curran.

Legislators Margaret Haggard, Nichole Terminelli and John Burke opposed the measure.

Prior to voting on the legislation, testimonials came from St. Lawrence Health Systems Cancer Center Director Ben Hull, who spoke as a private citizen, and Ogdensburg Volunteer Rescue Squad Chief Ken Gardner.

Hull recently gave his resignation following New York State’s mandate to require vaccinations for healthcare workers. His biggest concern over the mandate was that it also removed religious exemptions.

Hull said that there were five reasons he believed the vaccine should not be mandated.

First he said personal protective equipment works and so does the vaccine.

He said vaccines are freely available to “all who desire them.” It should be noted that no vaccines are available for children under age 12.

He said COVID-19 can be effectively treated, however he did not elaborate on what treatments existed.

He said the government institutions have squandered the public’s trust. He said the latest move by Gov. Kathy Hochul to override religious exemption showed she would stop at nothing to push her agenda.

Finally he said the mandate would force health care workers out of their jobs, which he said means people will die.

“There is no vaccine for a heart attack,” he said.

Gardner told the legislators that if the vaccine mandate were expanded to include emergency medical services it would “collapse” the Ogdensburg Volunteer Rescue Squad as well as other EMS providers that rely on volunteers.

He said he has staff, both paid and unpaid, who are not willing to get the shot.

“If they make that announcement, I’ll lose them,” he said.

Gardner said the massive amount of training for volunteers has already deterred people from offering help in New York State.

He noted that his squad covers an area that ranges from Waddington to as far as Hammond in some cases and that they have been operating on a “skeleton” crew.

Gardner says it’s easy to find support for vaccines or evidence disputing their safety and says it will likely be five or more years before anyone knows the true impact. However, the vaccines have received approval from the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) and the vast majority of doctors agree that the vaccines are far safer than the potential risks associated with COVID-19.

Gardner is vaccinated.

Curran said she fears the mandates being pushed by the state and federal governments will push more people out of the healthcare field at a time when workers are already in short supply.

She pointed to slides that showed incentives being offered in nearby states, where vaccines are not mandatory for health care employees.

While nearly all of the legislators who spoke said they encouraged constituents to get vaccinated, the majority also said they did not believe such a thing should be mandated by the government.

Some said they were alright with mandates issued by employers.

Most adamantly opposed to the resolution however were legislators Haggard, Burke and Terminelli.

Haggard said that she is hearing hospitals filling up with unvaccinated COVID-19 patients, not people who are having side effects from the vaccine.

Burke said he would support a resolution opposing mandates for volunteer EMS workers, but could not support a resolution as broad as the one presented by Curran.

The resolution did not consist of any action beyond support for those opposing government mandates of the vaccine.