TUMWATER, Thurston County — Late last week, disturbing rumors started to fly on social media.
The state Board of Health, they claimed, was about to authorize local health officials and police to round up people for refusing to get coronavirus vaccines and forcibly lock them up in quarantine facilities.
It wasn’t true. There was no such plan.
But the falsehood spread with omicron-like rapidity, fueled by misinformation from anti-vaccine activists, some conservative radio hosts and at least three Republican congressional candidates.
By the time the health board convened on Wednesday, the usually obscure panel had been deluged with more than 30,000 emails, hundreds of calls and requests from some 8,000 people to testify at its virtual public meeting. Some of the messages included threats to board members and staff.
Keith Grellner, the chair of the Board of Health, said in an interview this week the heated blowback was based on “totally false” descriptions of the board’s meeting agenda.
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