Editorial: Public health isn't part of Sheriff Fortney's beat
By The Herald Editorial Board
We would like to advise Snohomish County Sheriff Adam Fortney to stick to the duties of law enforcement for which he was elected in November, but — based on a post he made to his political campaign’s Facebook page Tuesday night — he’s already excused himself from those responsibilities when it comes to enforcing the state’s “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” orders in the county.
Fortney, a 23-year veteran of the sheriff’s office prior to his election, posted a 1,100-word essay criticizing Gov. Jay Inslee’s plans — also announced Tuesday — for a gradual rollback of the stay-home restrictions that Inslee issued one month ago in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic. Fortney further added that he has not and will not carry out “any enforcement for the current stay-at-home order.”
While he has abstained from carrying out those duties, Fortney has added to his job description, offering his expertise regarding constitutional law, statistical modeling and public health, areas for which he has not volunteered proof of previous experience.
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Fortney misunderstands how statistical models — such as those of the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation — are assembled and how they are used by public health experts in evaluating the potential severity of pandemics and determining the resources and measures that will be necessary to limit them. They’re not meant to make “accurate” death toll predictions but to judge the effectiveness of control measures, which is why the models are adjusted continuously to reflect the latest data. And it’s why — because stay-at-home and social distancing practices have worked to limit the spread of the virus — the models have in recent weeks reflected a gradual easing in death-toll projections for Washington state and for the nation.
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