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By Connor Allen
alifornia Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order on March 19 for Californians to stay home except for those deemed ‘essential’ in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. For the last 33 consecutive days, the people of California have looked to their leaders for instruction and direction. In these unprecedented times, many people lead the community, from nurses and doctors risking their lives to fight the virus, employees of an essential business who show up every day to make sure the community has food and resources, as well as all the small businesses that have entirely changed their operating systems to serve the county and their neighbors. But no two people have had a greater impact or a greater weight to carry than County Health
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Officer Dr. Penny Borenstein and County Administrative Officer and Director of Emergency Services Wade Horton. Together, Horton and Borenstein played a significant role in making decisions for SLO County — like sheltering at home and the closing of local businesses that have impacted every person in this community — and it’s not something that they have taken lightly. “I can say it was the most difficult decision I have ever made in my life,” Horton told The Atascadero News and The Paso Robles Press in an interview on Saturday. “And probably will be the most difficult decision I make in my life. I knew what the impact would be, or I thought I knew what the impact would be and making that decision, I am just trying to do the right thing for what we need.
Ever y day I am making a lot of decisions, and every day I make those decisions based off of the information I have and how I can do right by the community. It is a very humbling spot to be in.” Horton has served not only this county but also his country with 15 years of service in the reserves, including time overseas and was unanimously voted by the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors to be the newest San Luis Obispo County Administrative Officer in November 2017. His counterpart Borenstein has a strong resume as well. “I have a nearly 30-year career of doing this work,” Dr. Borenstein said, who has spent time working in public health all over the county, including working in Washington D.C. during the Anthrax outbreak of 2001 and
working in Maryland during the times of Ebola and SARS. “I am very much accustomed to the onset of a new disease or new situation that understandably causes great public concern, and I have been in the situation many times before having to help manage that concern with facts and our best understanding of the disease situation,” Borenstein stated. “Having said that, those situations and this one are very humbling. No manner of training or experience can prepare a public health position for a worstcase scenario because it is global in its scope, deep in its impact. As you have seen with this situation and many others, we learn more about the details of the specific germs, organisms; it’s manner of spread, it’s propensity to hit certain groups, the asymptomatic nature of it, so it is very humbling to be in a decision making position Colony Magazine | May 2020
