Elected officials on Kitsap County’s board of health have received swaths of emails opposing the idea of local COVID-19 vaccine mandates, and nearly all of the hour of public comment at the board’s Tuesday meeting was filled with opposition to the idea and some opposing vaccines generally.
The possibility of local vaccine requirements had been raised as an option by Dr. Gib Morrow, health officer for the Kitsap Public Health District, and the health board had an initial discussion on the topic at a special meeting last week where they, for the most part, shied away from the idea.
At Tuesday's meeting, Bremerton Mayor Greg Wheeler proposed a motion that would signal the health board wasn’t immediately going to pursue a vaccine requirement for patrons of businesses and wasn’t going to push for a requirement for employees of local government to be vaccinated, while simultaneously endorsing the importance of vaccinations, but the board eventually opted to push a discussion to a future meeting.