It’s a dereliction of duty for Johnson County sheriff to flout COVID directive

Unvaccinated first responders don’t just put their own health at risk, but pose a threat to public safety, too. That makes sense, right?

Not to Johnson County Sheriff Calvin Hayden. He announced this week that he’s not requiring members of his office to comply with a county directive requiring any county worker to either provide proof of vaccination or submit to weekly COVID-19 testing.

Detective Sgt. Jesse Valdez, a spokesman for the office, told The Star that Hayden “felt that employees can make that decision” on their own. OK, but then can citizens make the decision to interact only with deputies who won’t put them at risk? No, of course.

So, as in all of these situations, they’ll be deciding for themselves and for the rest of us, too. So much for choice.

The directive already makes room for employees to choose whether to be vaccinated. But if someone on the public payroll chooses not to take a shot in the arm to mitigate the spread of a deadly virus, then they should willingly accept being routinely tested.

For some county employees who provide direct care to residents, the directive would require testing up to twice weekly.

Johnson County continues to report increases in new COVID-19 cases. On Monday, the county’s positivity rate — the percentage of positive tests over the past 14 days — was 9.6%, up from 3.1% on July 1. The last time the rate was this high was in January.

As of Monday, only 58% of eligible residents in the county were fully vaccinated, according to county health department data.

Since vaccines are the best way to keep the public safe from this killer, and public safety is the primary job of the county sheriff, refusing to enforce the health directive is a dereliction of duty.