Here are the lessons we think Idaho should have learned from our response to COVID-19

Idaho needed a more centralized, unified response to the COVID-19 pandemic from the governor and the Department of Health and Welfare. We needed better enforcement of mask mandates and a mechanism to allow citations for people who did not follow them.

We were woefully unprepared for school shutdowns and a spike in unemployment claims.

Some communities, such as non-English speakers, were often forgotten when information was being sent out about the coronavirus.

These are some of the lessons we’ve learned, now two years into the coronavirus pandemic.

Nearly 1 million Americans have died from COVID-19 over the past two years. In Idaho, nearly 5,000 have died.

Probably the saddest part of those numbers is that most of those deaths occurred after we had vaccines available to prevent them. Most of those deaths were people who were unvaccinated. In other words, most of those deaths were preventable.

Schools shut down, businesses shut down, tens of thousands of Idahoans were unemployed and our hospitals were overwhelmed, leading to crisis standards of care designations.

Here are some ideas to be better prepared the next time:

Better enforcement. No one was really prepared to enforce any sort of restrictions, from business shutdowns to stay-at-home orders and mask mandates.

The only enforcement tool was a misdemeanor. Public health districts need the ability to issue citations, rather than being forced to arrest people and charge them with a misdemeanor.

Masks work, but because there was no enforcement, or enforcement was foisted upon 17-year-old cashiers, who had screaming-mad customers yelling in their faces, mask use was spotty at best.

However, if people were issued a ticket every time they were caught not wearing their mask in a public place, that would increase mask use.

Similar to speeding or driving the wrong way down a one-way street, which the government discourages to keep the public safe, not wearing a mask would be deterred through citations.

Look at people flying on planes. No mask, no flight. It works.

Idaho Gov. Brad Little continually said during the pandemic that he was going to rely on Idahoans to do the right thing when it comes to mask wearing and getting the vaccine. This was a seemingly reasonable strategy. Unfortunately, it didn’t work, because too many Idahoans proudly did the wrong thing.

Idaho hit crisis standards of care, as our health care system became overwhelmed, and those who wouldn’t wear a mask in public or get the vaccine didn’t care that our hospitals were filled with dead and dying people. So relying on the goodwill of Idahoans didn’t work. That leaves enforcement as the best tool.

Fix our public health districts system. It didn’t work well. The Treasure Valley, for example, is cut in half, with Ada County in one district, Canyon County in another. Redraw district lines to align with population centers.

Promote, educate about vaccines. Truly, the development of mRNA vaccines will go down in history as one of the great advancements of modern science in our time, just as Jonas Salk and Louis Pasteur are remembered as pioneers for saving lives in their day. Convincing people of the safety and efficacy of vaccines will be paramount in fighting off the next pandemic. Australia, with one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, has among the lowest death rates in the world. The U.S., with among the lowest vaccination rates, has among the highest death rates. Vaccines unquestionably work.

Need for centralized response. Drastic times call for drastic measures. We needed a centralized, top-down response from the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. Instead, decisions were pushed down to individual health districts, which often offered weak guidance to cities, counties and school districts, which in turn often made weak or misguided decisions. We needed strong leadership from the top to say, “This is how it’s going to be throughout Idaho.” As it is, the Idaho Legislature already has watered down the health districts’ powers and authority, making a stronger statewide approach even more needed next time around.

Stay flexible. Particularly with a novel coronavirus, the data and our understanding of the virus are constantly changing. Just because something changes, though, that doesn’t mean we should ignore the new and emerging information. Early on, we thought masks wouldn’t work with the coronavirus. Then we learned that they do. The guidance changed. Just because something isn’t 100% doesn’t mean we throw the baby out with the bathwater. If someone who was vaccinated and boosted got COVID-19, that doesn’t mean vaccines don’t work and no one should take them. Changing data and changing guidance does not mean incompetence.

It’s still better to overreact than underreact. Did we overreact during the pandemic? Absolutely. Remember wiping down your groceries or even your mail with disinfectant wipes? That was an overreaction that was unnecessary as we learned more about the virus and its spread. But as the old adage goes, “Better safe than sorry.”

Business shutdowns. This was one of those overreactions and it wasn’t executed well. Small businesses ended up shutting down while big businesses like Walmart benefited. We would have been better served to keep businesses open — as long as people followed safety protocols like wearing a mask in public (see above).

Never say the words “essential” and “nonessential.” This sent the wrong message to those who were deemed nonessential.

Prepare our schools. It became painfully clear that our response to handling this in our school system was a disaster. Of course, we didn’t know at the time that children wouldn’t be as severely affected, so we shut down schools and tried to do online learning, which was a mess.

While this pandemic did not hit children as hard as adults, the next pandemic might be different. We need to have a better system in place to isolate and do hybrid learning. Schools should be better prepared to have in-person classes on alternate days. We need better broadband throughout the state but particularly in rural Idaho. Schools should be prepared to utilize micro-classrooms and incentivize new teachers or a temporary teaching force to respond. Our school districts and volunteer school boards were caught flat-footed, without plans and without support. Let’s do a better job of preparing our schools.

Let’s plan to better respond to the next pandemic and learn from our mistakes on this one. Because those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.