Far-Right Board Delivers Ultimate Payback for COVID Measures

Community members wearing t-shirts reading “Public Health Saves Lives” packed an administrative building in Ottawa County, Michigan, Tuesday night to support the county’s embattled Health Department.

Inside, the county’s board of commissioners, dominated by a group of ultra conservatives, voted to cut the department’s budget by $2.1 million—against pleas from public health officials and community members.

Adeline Hambley, Health Officer at the county’s Department of Public Health, said last week that the cuts would result in the shuttering of food programs for low-income families, vaccine programs, suicide prevention programs, dental care for uninsured children, programs for migrants, communicable disease prevention, addiction resources, and sexually-transmitted disease services. Funding for two of the county’s five epidemiologists would also be eliminated.

Read more at The Daily Beast.