Gov. David Ige’s frequent emergency decrees on COVID-19 would go down easier if he’d show more willingness to adjust when reasonable concerns are raised or alternatives offered.
Instead, he and his administrators reflexively dig in and refuse to budge.
Two recent examples were the Health Department’s persistence in using age as a factor in rationing emergency health care and Ige’s refusal to relax the no-spectators rule for University of Hawaii sports.
The age issue emerged when it was included in crisis care standards Ige cited in his Sept. 1 executive order giving health care facilities immunity from lawsuits for triage decisions they make if overrun by more patients than they can handle.
Basically, it says if other considerations are equal, age can be used as a tiebreaker for deciding who gets care — based on data showing that COVID-19 patients over 65 have poorer prognoses.
Advocates for seniors pointed to likely violation of federal age discrimination laws, which Ige has no power to override.
It stuck in the craw of many that seniors, the most diligent about getting vaccinated and wearing masks, could take a back seat in the emergency room to younger unvaccinated patients whose refusal to protect themselves or others is driving much of the latest COVID-19 surge.
In a classic passive-aggressive move, Health Director Dr. Elizabeth Char went ahead and posted the rules despite the objections, while disavowing any role in writing the standards drafted by community medical practitioners.
On UH sports, Ige held fast on keeping Warriors football the only major program in the country to ban fans at home games, rejecting pleas from parents of players for a limited exception.
The governor is right that we don’t want scenes like at some mainland universities of football stadiums packed to capacity with unmasked fans.
But the UH parents didn’t ask for that. They proposed 500 family and friends of players, or even fewer, be allowed to attend this weekend’s game against San Jose State at the 9,000-seat Clarence T.C. Ching Athletic Complex — all vaccinated, masked and socially distanced according to rules for outdoor gatherings.
It was a well-reasoned plan that made it highly unlikely the game would turn into a super-spreader event. But Ige wouldn’t bend, offering only a hollow hope that “we will be in a better place before the end of the football season.”
He also refused a similar request by UH to allow a relative handful of vaccinated and masked fans at Rainbow Wahine volleyball and soccer matches.
Thoughtful executive emergency orders are the only way to effectively deal with a fluid public health crisis like COVID-19, which changes so fast there’s often little time for debating and legislating.
But while it’s fair to crack down on those who won’t cooperate in protecting themselves or the community, Ige loses credence when he refuses reasonable rewards for those who follow the rules and do their part to curb the virus.
Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.
