Caspar, Vio. – The state’s coronavirus response involved the health department’s Wyoming Department questioning the legality of the epidemic and describing the upcoming vaccine as a biological weapon in a recent incident.
The so-called “epidemic” and efforts by Russia and China to spread global communism are part of the department’s readiness and countermeasures manager Igor Shepherd said at a Nov. 10 event hosted by the Col Colrado Free and Open Group.
Shepherd’s presentation spoke to the health worker’s Wyoming Department in a presentation over hours in Loveland, Colorado.
Shepherd’s baseless and unequivocal claims undermined Wyoming’s public health measures – and public incentives – to limit the spread of the virus, as well as its plans to distribute the Covid-19 vaccine in the coming months.
However, Wyoming officials, including Gov. Mark Gordon, who recently told people at a news conference not to take the virus seriously, “Knocklades,” declined to comment.
Department Director Mike Sablolos and State Health Officer Dr. Alexia Harrist did not respond Friday to questions, including when Shepherd’s remarks were reported and what they did in response.
Phones and social media messages left for Shepherd on Friday were not returned.
Shepherd has worked for the health department since 2013 and has been part of the state team responding to Covid-19, though not in a leadership role, department spokeswoman Kim Deti said.
“Thousands of hours of dedicated work by our staff and our local partners on all of the things we’ve said over the months and this response effort, and the hope that our overall departmental position on epidemiology will be clarified again with vaccine offers.” Deti said in a similar statement on Thursday to the Casper Star-Tribune, which first reported Shepherd’s release and on Friday to A.P.
Researchers have been worried for months that suspicions of politicization of the COVID-19 vaccine could harm their effectiveness. Vaccines are more effective if most of the population is inoculated.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins and Texas State University wrote a letter in July emphasizing this concern, the Star-Tribune reports.
“If poorly designed and implemented, the Covid-19 vaccination campaign in the U.S. could undermine confidence in vaccines and the growing rigidity towards public health officials – especially among those at risk of Covid-19 effects,” the researchers wrote.
