Missouri Gov. Mike Parson’s decision to hire a nonprofit organization for $2.5 million to help spur public acceptance of the coronavirus vaccines, like his earlier move to create a lottery to coax vaccinations, isn’t the worst idea, given the state's sorry vaccination rates. There are, however, some concerns about the contract that should be publicly addressed, like a startling provision that gives the organization until next March to have a plan in place for deployment of mobile immunization events in targeted areas. Missouri’s spiraling coronavirus rates are an emergency happening in real time right now, not next March.
But a more fundamental concern is the sense that Parson is spending millions to put out Missouri’s raging pandemic fire even as members of his own party pour more gasoline on it with misinformation and hysteria about masks and vaccines. It’s as if Parson has decided that writing checks to steer the public toward responsible behavior is an acceptable substitute for true leadership on his part — which would entail confronting legislative Republicans who are endangering lives by pandering to the worst elements of the anti-mask/anti-vaccination movement.
Missouri has among the lowest full vaccination rates in America, at under 45%. During this summer’s resurgence, the state has also seen among the nation’s highest death rates. There’s no serious argument to be made that this is a coincidence. Vaccination works, as do masks, but wide swaths of the state’s conservative rural regions have rejected both based on misinformation and the misguided politicization of the pandemic.
As the Post-Dispatch’s Kurt Erickson reports, Parson’s administration has signed a contract with the Missouri Immunization Coalition seeking to boost those vaccination rates. It’s in line with Parson’s earlier launch of the $10,000 weekly lottery as an incentive for vaccination. Despite the concerns about the details of the latest contract, the concept of widespread promotion of vaccination is sound.
But even as Parson takes these steps, members of his own party continue to work against that goal — including Republican lawmakers who recently joined in a crowded, maskless protest of employee vaccination rules at Springfield’s Mercy Hospital. On Facebook, state Rep. Brian Seitz, R-Branson, grotesquely characterized this reckless stunt as “patriots” working to “confront tyranny.” When elected officials are seriously suggesting that it’s draconian to require even health care workers who are in direct contact with patients to be vaccinated, all rational debate is over.
Parson is guilty of some lapses himself, like his dismissive reference to “dang masks” last year and his promotion of conspiracy nonsense about the Biden administration’s vaccination efforts. But Parson’s worst lapse is his silence in the face of anti-vaccination obstinance from his fellow Missouri Republicans. If Parson would just forcefully and publicly denounce this as the rhetorical poison that it is, maybe the state wouldn’t have to spend millions to hire consultants to counteract it.
