WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — Marathon County’s Public Health Officer is clarifying a portion of Tuesday’s Board of Health agenda, saying there is absolutely no discussion or thought of instituting a vaccine or mask mandate for the county’s school districts.
“My feeling is it’s not even in the realm of consideration,” said Laura Scudiere. “We have not discussed vaccine or masking mandates, or mandates of any kind. And really, I don’t have the enforcement ability to do anything of that nature.”
Instead, the board will be discussing a proposal to send a letter to all districts in the county reminding them of their responsibilities and the Health Department’s recommendations when it comes to COVID-19 and other communicable diseases. Something that Scudiere says was brought up at December’s meeting and has carried over to the January agenda, and something that she doesn’t see as needed.
“My recommendation to the board will be to not follow through with that. It’s my understanding from my discussions with various school superintendents that they know the requirements and are doing what they can to mitigate,” Said Scudiere.
The agenda item in question called for possible action to schools concerning two different Wisconsin statutes- 252.05 and 252.21. A copy of the proposed letter was included in December’s agenda packet, which included language encouraging schools to provide COVID-19 testing for staff and students and report all positive cases and close contacts to the county health department.
The letter also called on schools to encourage vaccination but made no mention of any sort of mandate for either testing or vaccination.
Scudiere says the confusion and uproar caused by some who thought the agenda item would include a mandate shows the need to be informed consumers of information, especially on social media. “This is a really great example of how quickly misinformation can spread on Facebook. It’s really important for us as consumers of social media to remember that not everything we read on Facebook is true.
“I really appreciated people who heard this coming right to the source to find out [what was going on,]” she added.
