LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — His wife’s experience with the COVID-19 virus has prompted Clearlake’s mayor to make an impassioned plea to city staff to get vaccinated.
As the Clearlake City Council meeting was winding down on Thursday night, Clearlake Mayor Dirk Slooten used his report to make the request of staff.
Slooten’s wife, Karen, recently contracted COVID-19 despite the fact that they both had been vaccinated against the virus, he said.
He explained that his wife has immune deficiency issues. Her doctor told her that had she not been vaccinated, he believed she would have died.
That spurred Dirk Slooten to begin talking to city staff and encouraging those who weren’t vaccinated to get the vaccine.
“Please do. It’s very near to my heart,” he said.
Slooten said at Thursday night’s meeting that he had been talking to City Manager Alan Flora and City Clerk/Administrative Services Director Melissa Swanson about how to help get more city employees vaccinated.
He said they would be sending out a memo to staff and that he wants to offer every city employee who has not been vaccinated yet but gets vaccinated by Sept. 1 a $100 “just to emphasize the necessity for getting vaccinated.”
Slooten added, “It’s important, very important to end the spread of this pandemic.”
If the city doesn’t cover the cost, Slooten said he will.
“If we hadn’t done it, I’d be a widower,” Slooten said of he and his wife getting vaccinated.
In a Friday interview with Lake County News, Slooten said he was finishing up the memo to staff and wife Karen was helping him look it over before sending it to Swanson to distribute to staff.
He said his wife had tested positive with a breakthrough infection after July 4.
She was not hospitalized, but Dirk Slooten said she’s not yet fully recovered. “She’s slowly getting better.”
Karen Slooten had pain in her lungs and shortness of breath, and horrible headaches. Her husband said she didn’t experience one of the notable symptoms, loss of smell.
Her doctor made it clear that being vaccinated prevented her from having a much worse case of the virus. “It really started hitting home. You wouldn't be around if you weren’t vaccinated,” Dirk Slooten said.
Also on Friday, he said they received word that one of his wife’s cousins, a reasonably healthy individual who wasn’t vaccinated, contracted the virus, was in the hospital and then released, only to die.
Dirk Slooten said city administrative staff can decide to cover the vaccination bonus without council action.
However, he reiterated that if the city doesn’t fund his proposal, he’ll pay for the bonuses for employees who get the shots himself in an effort to protect more people and limit the virus’ spread.
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Clearlake mayor asks city staff to be vaccinated against COVID-19
- Elizabeth Larson
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