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LEBANON – Republicans in New Hampshire are signaling plans to dismantle local restrictions on coronaviruses by banning mask and vaccine warrants they say limit personal freedom.
House Republicans have so far submitted more than two dozen requests for legislative services – or requests to draft a bill – challenging mandates promulgated by municipalities, schools and private businesses.
Some of the demands aim to ban schools from forcing students and staff to wear masks indoors, while others would ban companies from enforcing vaccine requirements, including those mandated by the government federal.
Lawmakers are also proposing limits on the authority of local health workers and municipal ordinances. And a request would allow ivermectin – the antiparasitic drug sold by conspiracy theorists as a cure for COVID-19 – be sold over the counter.
Anne Sosin, who heads the Center for Global Health Equity at Dartmouth College, said the list of bills had far-reaching implications.
In the short term, she said, this could tie the hands of medical professionals and officials trying to limit the spread of COVID-19.
“In the longer term, I’m concerned this will undermine the already weak public health capacity we have in the state of New Hampshire,” Sosin said in a telephone interview. “We need to be able to respond to the next pandemic. ”
She added that given the increase in coronavirus cases, now is not the time for policymakers to abandon the few tools they have to protect public health.
Last week, the state reported a seven-day average of 456 coronavirus cases, a threshold last seen in February. During this time, WMUR reported As of Monday, New Hampshire’s vaccination rate has only increased 1.7% since July.
“We are in the middle of a wave,” Sosin said. “Now is the wrong time to have this debate in New Hampshire.”
Current state law allows private employers to require their employees to be vaccinated. And the Upper Valley’s two largest employers – Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health and Dartmouth College – have announced COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Meanwhile, many of the area’s larger school districts are requiring their teachers and students to wear masks.
But State Representative Jeffrey Greeson R-Wentworth said warrants, especially those that would require people to get vaccinated to keep their jobs, would cross a line and undermine personal freedom.
“It’s all about freedom. We can be “safe,” we can live free… it’s not a compromise, ”said Greeson, whose floating district includes the upper valley towns of Canaan and Orange.
The first-term lawmaker intends to sponsor bills “banning coercion or punishment” for refusing a vaccine and setting up a grand jury to investigate the state’s pandemic restrictions.
Greeson, who declined to say whether he had received a COVID-19 vaccine, said the grand jury will review the legality of Governor Chris Sununu’s mask warrant, stay-at-home order and other rules of emergency.
“We were literally under one man rule, that man being Governor (Chris) Sununu,” he said.
While Republicans are behind efforts to remove local coronavirus regulations, it is not clear whether the party leadership will support the effort.
A split as far as some lawmakers are willing to go emerged last week when House leaders held a press conference outside the Statehouse to protest the Biden administration’s recent order requiring COVID-19 vaccines for federal employees, health care agencies and employers with 100 or more workers.
The crowd turned on the representatives, with some accusing Sununu of not doing enough.
Governor’s spokesman Ben Vihstadt declined to comment on the bills on Monday, saying the final language was not yet public and that many requests for legislative services were not turning into bills.
“If it appears that a bill is likely to pass both houses and reach the governor’s office, the governor will consider the final language of any bill before deciding whether to sign it, oppose it. his veto or let it become law without his signature, “he said. said in an email.
But State Senator Bob Giuda R-Warren has said coronavirus restrictions will be a “huge” topic in the coming year. While declining to predict how the debate would play out in the House, Giuda said, “I think the Senate will be much more nuanced.”
Giuda, whose Senate district includes the towns of Haverhill, Piermont, Orford, Orange and Dorchester, said he was not in favor of a statewide policy on masks in schools , adding that the decision should be left to local officials who can be dismissed.
However, he is inclined to vote against authorizing vaccination warrants and fears that the national vaccine registry could be used against people who refuse to be vaccinated.
“This is a collision between privacy, public health policy and physically intrusive measures,” he said. “Each of these in and of itself requires considerable discussion and the balance between them, if we are doing anything, is something that we have to find.”
According to Senator Sue Prentiss, D-Lebanon, the choice to interfere with private companies and the local government is clear: “it is a bad idea”.
“Every time we turn our backs on scientists and public health officials and the health care community, who say vaccination is the solution, we are only prolonging the impact of COVID,” he said. she declared.
Prentiss went on to say the Republicans were just “spinning their wheels” instead of tackling the policy that would pull New Hampshire out of the pandemic. And, while Democrats are in the minority in Concord, she intends to defend local governments instituting their own rules.
Tim Camerato can be contacted at [email protected] or 603-727-3223.
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