Health board member pushes colleagues to take COVID-19 seriously

After a serious bout with COVID-19, county health board member Debra Armstrong last week pushed for the development of a more robust plan to treat the disease locally, but stopped short of promoting vaccinations.

It’s a near about-face for Armstrong, who has represented Eureka on the board throughout the pandemic and promoted vitamins, supplements and lifestyle changes as the best way to confront the disease. Armstrong had, until very recently, questioned the severity of the illness, regularly pushed back against the county’s health officer’s recommendations, questioned timeworn methods for mitigating a virus’ spread and opposed public restrictions.

“I am very grateful I got COVID-19,” she told her colleagues Oct. 12. “It was a huge learning experience.”

Armstrong said she developed COVID-19 pneumonia and came close to death. The disease left her incredibly weak and without an appetite. She became a “happy hypoxic,” meaning she felt upbeat despite incredibly low blood oxygen levels. The phenomenon is documented in other COVID-19 patients, according the journal Science.

She also reported struggling with dehydration. The disease left her so weak she found difficulty in getting a glass to drink. Armstrong said that other COVID-19 patients developed an intense thirst. For them, an electrolyte imbalance emerged as a problem, she said.

One thing was clear, Armstrong said: The strain of coronavirus going around now was much more serious than previous iterations.

“Something is killing people in our community and I think we need to address that,” she said.

Since the economic lockdowns of early 2020, the county health board has devoted much of its meeting time discussing the pandemic. Debate over what measures to adopt as case counts increased last year grew contentious. Armstrong was present for most of those meetings.

In November, Armstrong opposed county Health Officer Dr. Brad Black’s proposed pandemic mitigation efforts, which aligned with then Gov. Steve Bullock’s statewide restrictions. In December, she told Black and her colleagues that community health decisions were best left in the hands of residents.

“I think the community, in the end, is responsible for our own community health,” she said.

In a wide-ranging discussion about the role of the health board in public health during a March meeting, Armstrong rejected measures like quarantines.

“I think our position is mainly educating,” she said.

On Oct. 12, Armstrong pressed her colleagues and health department staff on developing a plan. Public Health Manager Jennifer McCully said the county was working off of several documents, including its influenza pandemic and communicable disease plans. Armstrong lobbied for a proposal tailored to COVID-19 and an assessment as to whether the health department’s methods worked.

She also pushed for a more hands-on approach. She proposed a system of sending patients infected with the coronavirus home with kits to aid them in their recovery. The packets would include an oximeter and information regarding hydration and electrolytes, among other items.

“So far nobody is talking about the actual needs of COVID-19,” she said.

Board Chair Jan Ivers agreed with Armstrong’s proposal. But when she asked Kathi Hooper, director of the county health department, to begin compiling a list, Armstrong objected.

“The government does not need to be doing it for us,” she said. “We do have a responsibility to educate the leaders in our community — mayors, medical providers, church leaders — so they can get their own resources together. … We cannot take care of all of the community. The community has to be involved in their own care.”

Armstrong also criticized local health care providers for failing to properly inform their patients. The oversight likely stemmed from the increased workload resulting from the pandemic, she said. Health board members needed to take the lead in educating the region’s health care providers.

“We need to be educating the providers,” she said. “We need to be educating and showing them the possibilities.”

Those possibilities include forthcoming “wonder drugs,” Armstrong said, and treatments including monoclonal antibodies. Given emergency use authorization by the FDA late last year, the therapy has shown success in treating COVID-19 patients, among them former President Donald Trump. Composed of lab-made monoclonal antibodies designed to mimic those produced naturally by the body, the treatment has seen increased demand across the country in recent months.

Board member Jim Seifert, who represents Troy on the panel, wondered why Armstrong omitted vaccines from her proposals. A proponent of both pandemic restrictions and the array of vaccines available for COVID-19, Seifert pointed to the disparity in patient outcomes between the vaccinated and unvaccinated.

A September study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that unvaccinated individuals were 10 times more likely to require hospitalization than their vaccinated counterparts. Unvaccinated patients were 11 times more likely to die as a result of the disease.

“You always talk about treatment, treatment, treatment and treatment. What I always talk about is prevention, prevention, prevention,” Seifert said. “If you prevent it from happening you don’t need treatment.”

Armstrong rejected the idea that she was focused solely on treatment. Throughout the pandemic, she reminded Seifert, she has pushed for residents to turn to vitamins, supplements, good nutrition and a healthy lifestyle as a way to prevent the virus from spreading.

She did not address vaccinations, but earlier described her colleagues as failing to properly educate the public.

“We have been very remiss in educating the public on the many non pharmaceutical things we can do,” she said.