Outbreak claim refuted

HURON — A school board member who will be a featured speaker at an anti-vaccine fundraiser later this month isn't talking anymore about claims she made in a promotional video that 67 members of the hospital staff where she works are out with COVID-19. Screenshot from interview of Dr. Elizabeth "Beth" Laffay by Kathryn Huwig. Screenshot Dr. Elizabeth Laffay, who was elected to the Huron school board in November and began her term on Tuesday, also won't say how her anti-vaccine and anti-mask views might impact her votes as a board member in the future. Laffay has not responded to questions about the claim she made that 67 hospital staff members were out with COVID. The Register sent inquiries to her school board email address and messaged her at social networking accounts she uses. She also has not returned two telephone messages left for her at her private practice in Sandusky. Laffay, whose specialty is emergency medicine, did not say which hospital she was referring to where 67 staff members have been diagnosed with COVID, a number she called "a big chunk of the staff" at her hospital. Online directories indicate she is a part-time ER doctor at Mercy Health hospital in Lorain, but she has not confirmed that. Her medical license, according to an online database, also indicates that she works in Lorain. There have not been any outbreaks at Mercy Health to the level Laffay claimed, however, according to the Lorain County Health Department. Laffay has not responded to requests for more information. "We have no report of an outbreak at any of our hospital systems," Mark Adams, Lorain County health commissioner said on Thursday. "I talked with our (epidemiologists) today to see if they saw anything trending there and they did not." A group of people not wearing masks walk toward Kroger to do their grocery shopping on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2020, in Perkins Township. Register photo/ERIN CALDWELL She disagrees Laffay, since the start of the pandemic, has been an outspoken opponent of masks and of other recommendations made by public health organizations. In September 2020, she was part of a protest at the Kroger Marketplace in Sandusky, where masks were required at the time. She and a group of about 20 others ignored signs on the door at the store that stated masks were required and shopped there without wearing masks. She ran for school board last year with two other self-described conservatives, one of whom (not Laffay) acknowledged attending former President Donald Trump's rally in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021, promoting the "big lie" that Trump won the 2020 presidential election. The rally preceded the insurrection, in which a mob of Trump supporters swarmed the U.S. Capitol and violently attempted to overthrow the elected U.S. government. Laffay was the only one of the three conservatives who ran as a team for Huron school board to end up winning a seat. She is a featured speaker later this month at an Ohio Stands Up dinner. The group is fundraising for a law firm involved in lawsuits against the state department of health and others to stop vaccine mandates. Tickets to the dinner are $50. A GoFundMe page associated with the group appears to have raised nearly $149,000 in pledges to pay legal fees associated with the lawsuits. In her promotional interview for the dinner, Laffay also said the use of Remdesivir and other therapies for treating COVID patients are being pushed by "upper management (at hospitals) for monetary purposes" — and that Remdesivr was a drug that "mimics end-stage COVID." Those claims and others Laffay made have been refuted by other medical professionals and by public health experts, the Centers for Disease Control and other medical organizations. Laffay has declined to be interviewed about her views. Erie County health commissioner Pete Schade said misinformation about masks and vaccines have led too many people to refuse, or wait too long before getting vaccinated, putting strains on hospitals and full-time medical staffs and prolonging the pandemic. Read related stories at the links below.